


Redintegration

by HimsaAhimsa



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Action, Canon Divergence/AU From To'hajiilee, Drama, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Medical Trauma, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23533378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HimsaAhimsa/pseuds/HimsaAhimsa
Summary: When he’d found the kid at Walt’s otherwise unoccupied house some weeks later, ablaze with unchecked emotion and a fist-full of fire, he’d felt a tad more sympathetic; the evidence of Walt’s new brand of havoc alight in the kid’s every pained word and the cowed bow of his body.  But even that had been fleeting.  Less than a half hour later, Hank had Jesse caught between a rock and a hard spot, had obligated him to record a confession for which Pinkman would reap the consequences if they couldn’t make them stick to Walt.  Hank had coerced the kid into staying in Hank's own home, under the guise of protecting him, when really, it was only Hank who stood to gain anything from illegally holding the kid against his will and drugging him into oblivion to ensure he’d cooperate and give the desired performance the next day.
Comments: 149
Kudos: 111





	1. Requiem

**Author's Note:**

> First, thank you to the lovely Porkchop_Sandwiches for the beta, and for letting me bounce ideas off of her. Any residual mistakes are inherently mine.
> 
> This is a 7-part series, of which 6 parts are already written, and the last is in progress.
> 
> I'm not a medical expert, nor do I have any expansive knowledge of the law or police procedures, so I hope that my brief research has sufficiently enabled me to write a fairly-believable story. 
> 
> Constructive Criticism is welcome, however, please be respectful. 
> 
> This is my first multi-chapter fic. I hope you enjoy it!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he’d found the kid at Walt’s otherwise unoccupied house some weeks later, ablaze with unchecked emotion and a fist-full of fire, he’d felt a tad more sympathetic; the evidence of Walt’s newfound brand of havoc alight in the kid’s every pained word and the cowed bow of his body. But even that had been fleeting. Less than a half hour later, Hank had Jesse caught between a rock and a hard spot, had obligated him to record a confession for which Pinkman would reap the consequences if they couldn’t make them stick to Walt. Hank had coerced the kid into staying in Hank's own home, under the guise of protecting him, when really, it was only Hank who stood to gain anything from illegally holding the kid against his will and drugging him into oblivion to ensure he’d cooperate and give the desired performance the next day.

**REDINTEGRATION**

English

### Noun

( _[en noun](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary#noun)_ )

(rare) Restoration to a whole or sound state. 

(chemistry, obsolete) Restoration of a mixture to its former nature and state. 

(psychology) The reinstatement of a memory upon the presentation of a stimulus element that was a part of the stimulus complex that had aroused the event.

**Chapter One: _Requiem_**

Hank stares at the corpse at his feet.

The thought of spitting on the body comes fleetingly, the prospect of adding the final insult to an already grave injury sounds satisfying, but then the more sophisticated part of his brain takes over just as quickly; reminds him that the fatal gut-shot and subsequent bloodbath that’s threatening to soak into his loafers is quite enough.

It’s like a fairy tale, in a way. Heisenberg, the monster to Hank’s white knight in shining armor lies slayed before him, and he supposes he should be happy that it’s over. That he didn’t have to do the actual slaying. That he still solved the case, got his man, whether he brought him to the station in cuffs or not. He has him dead to rights, quite literally.

And for all the months that Hank has carried this vendetta, he figures that this conclusion—this justice so aptly served—should feel like a victory. But dead, Heisenberg looks too much like Walter White of Negra Arroyo Lane; late husband of Skyler Lambert; father of Junior and Holly and his own brother-in-law, for Hank to feel particularly celebratory. Now, with the end of this case in sight and the great Heisenberg accounted for and dealt with, it rates somewhere along the lines of unsatisfying sex.

“You doing alright?” Steve ambles up behind him, unaffected for all pretenses despite the slaughter underfoot.

“Yeah. Just…” Just _what_ , Hank doesn’t know. Just devastated? Vindicated? Just trying to hold it together? “Yeah.” He shakes his head as though doing so could clear it of emotion. “I’m good.” Good doesn’t begin to cover it, and he knows Steve doesn’t buy it, but he lets it lie for now. They have to. They have a job to do.

Hank watches the CSI team move methodically around the metal drums and stainless vats, tubing and ventilation parts that comprise an industrial-sized meth lab housed inside an otherwise ordinary warehouse, with exception to its location on the premises of a compound inhabited by one of the largest Neo-Nazi gangs in the Southwest.

Dozens of shots had been heard and reported from miles away in every direction, and ASAC Schrader, ABQ DEA, had responded, the late hour notwithstanding, the moment APD had discovered the lab.

The lab where the Great Heisenberg had met his fate.

It seems fitting, Hank thinks. Poetic justice. The chemistry Walt had loved so much had ultimately been his own undoing, and Hank wonders what they should write on his plot. Beloved father? Beloved teacher? Perhaps one day Hank can reflect on the days when he would have felt that Walt deserved such an epitaph, but at the moment, all Hank can see through the red is a sack of shit lying next to evidence marker number seven.

Gerald, their CSI forensic photographer, snaps away, camera flashing as Hank and Steve supervise the scouring of the lab, the team extracting samples of residual meth as they note similarities to Gus Fring’s operation. Hank avoids Walter’s blind stare, until someone blessedly covers his remains. Hank can’t wait for the coroner to schlep him away.

“What do you make of this?” Steve’s question pulls Hank out of his abstraction, and his eyes fix on the metal clip in Steve’s hand, a thick cable attached. Hank’s eyes move before his brain can catch up, tracking the rope up to the lines of fishplate, forming a track attached with gussets and trusses, suspended from the ceiling.

* * *

If the lab hadn’t offered enough revulsion, complete with a dead relative and some abomination of a slave-tethering contraption, then the clubhouse provides it in spades.

The six bodies, strewn about the floor, chairs, couches, all in varying states of post-mortem array, form a picture more fitting of a production of Sweeney Todd, or an art festival featuring a Jackson Pollock-inspired blood splatter over human medium.

There’s nothing to see but carnage from wall to battered wall—butchered meat not worth naming for all their swastikas and iron crosses tattooed proudly beneath bullet holes and pooled blood; their last ill-willed group meeting having turned to a baptism of fire and final rights all in one.

The running joke is that Hank’s stomach has steel lining.

He feels like throwing up.

* * *

Outside of the clubhouse, Hank can finally breathe.

The M60 still oscillates in the trunk of the red Buick—the smoking gun, smoke spent, still carving the path of its destruction over and over again.

In the light of mid-morning, the damage stands out in more contrast. The line severing the clubhouse’s structure and car alike look alive and eerie with sunlight fracturing them where they should be whole. An additional corpse strewn perpendicular between them bears a clean shot through its head but looks otherwise unscathed.

The bright reflections from the corrugated metal structures around them pierce Hank’s eyes, and he squints as he notes the chain-link fencing and barbed wire surrounding the compound, the pylons flanking the entry, surveillance cameras mounted atop each of them. “Please tell me these CCTV’s were running tape,” Hank pleads to everyone at large.

“Simmons is checking it out,” Gerald answers.

A comprehensive investigation around the perimeter turns up nothing, and Hank’s ready to call it. He’s ready for a coffee, if not some sleep, before the onslaught of paperwork and rifling through evidence begins. He stifles a yawn, about to beckon Steve to the car, when a voice behind him grates out a curse, sending the hairs up at the back of his neck.

_“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.”_

It’s not the expletive so much as the consternation threaded through it that disturbs him. Hank pivots in the voice’s direction, the movement sending a shooting pain through his hip. His back’s still angry about the bullet—the surgery—even months out of rehab as he is. He bites back a groan. He’ll be damned if he’ll complain in front of his colleagues, though he admits Marie might have been right to chide him for refusing his old cocktail of anti-inflammatory and pain medications the night before.

He limps over to where their newish recruit, a young guy, in his early thirties, with blond hair and a crooked nose, whose name he gropes to remember, has the corner of a tarp balled in his hand, revealing a metal grate and something else beneath.

 _“Damn,”_ another of their comrades breathes.

Connor, he remembers now, raises his eyebrows and then gags, wafting away the air in front of his face and shaking his head. “Raise the body count to nine,” he says, pulling the tarp completely free from the opening and wrapping it loosely around his forearms.

Steve catches up with Hank, and they both lean in to observe the scene below. Gerald ambles over to document the site: the faded tarp; the rocks which had held it in place; the rusted padlock securing the sliding lock; the grate bolted down over a concrete tomb, housing what looks to be its final victim inside its walls.

The camera clicks a few times, and then Gerald backs out of the way, allowing Connor to slide a pair of bolt-cutters through the padlock, squeezing until it gives way and slides through the bars to clatter on the ground next to the body.

“I’ll go down,” Steve offers in deference, giving Hank that look of concern— _God damn him—_ as he lowers their ladder, its double set of metal rungs sliding over themselves until they click into place. Hank will take the deference all day long, but the concern, though appreciated, has long since lost its appeal.

He lets Steve descend the ladder anyway.

The sweet stench of rot has grown more pervasive in the past few minutes, owing to the rising temperatures, and Steve lets out a muffled complaint that echoes off the walls.

“Ah, stop bitching,” Hank bites out. “I’d bet my life you’ve had pussy that smelled worse.” Chuckling, he casts his eyes about his team, self-satisfied with their guffaws.

“Jesus, Hank,” Steve calls up at him, the solemnity in his voice a jarring contrast to the residual laughter around them. “It’s Pinkman.”

The words ring in Hank’s ears as he bends down and squints.

The body sprawled down there is certainly male, going by the scruff of the cheek that’s not pressed into the cement floor, but he can’t see any physical connection to Pinkman. He climbs down into the hole, mouth pursed tight.

He takes in the state of the body: The clothes, a threadbare long shirt and cargo pants, look lived-in past the point of squalor, hanging off the victim like a shadow two sizes too large; the grubby skate sneakers the only tip-off to someone Jesse’s age.

The guy’s hair is several inches long, covering his forehead and the side of his face not already obscured by scraggly facial hair, both darker than he remembers Jesse’s being. He’s about to correct Steve, to tell him he’s got it wrong, but then he sees it: Beneath the network of white and pink scars, purple and yellow bruises, and dried, black blood crusting this guy’s cheekbone and disappearing up into his hairline, he can see how the small, fine-boned features and the long lines of the brows resembles Pinkman.

He leans back against the wall, huffing out a breath of frustration.

Jesse Pinkman has been on the forefront of Hank’s mind during this entire investigation, along with Todd Alquist. Theirs had been the only names missing from the list of identified bodies in this war-torn shithole—the last two people correlated to the Heisenberg case still suspected alive. He’d banked on bringing Pinkman in quickly, then getting him to roll on Alquist. He’d figured tracking Alquist would be difficult as it was, but now, he’s afraid Alquist will up and vanish like a ghost.

“Dammit!” He growls, slamming the fleshy side of his fist back against the wall behind him, staring into its cement counterpart mere feet in front of him.

At some point, he notices, fingertips have smeared the vertical surfaces of the concrete with blood. Bereaved of pattern or distinguishable shape, they hint at what these walls have seen, and Hank finds he’s not particularly itching to find out.

Hank had never felt wholly remorseful about bashing the kid to the point of senselessness all those months back. His pride had stung when he’d nearly lost his job, and the prospect of finding himself out of work and unable to provide for his wife threatened the very core of his manhood. He’d been regretful about it, so far as his career was concerned; embarrassed about what his team might think of him. He knew it was the wrong thing to do. But remorseful? Even when the memory of the kid’s unresponsive body splayed out beneath him crept unbidden into his mind, the feeling of his knuckles throbbing and stinging within easy recollection, he’d never felt more than a little rueful.

It had been long in coming to that little shit stain, Hank had decided at the time, and if it weren’t Hank who’d thrashed him, it would have been someone else sooner or later. Even when he’d later deduced that the kid had nothing to do with the phony call about his wife getting into a car accident, Hank had reasoned that Pinkman had eluded the law one too many times, and he hadn’t so much as given a second thought about basking in the post-beatdown high he’d felt after doling out the justice he felt fit to serve.

When he’d found the kid at Walt’s otherwise unoccupied house some weeks later, ablaze with unchecked emotion and a fist-full of fire, he’d felt a tad more sympathetic; the evidence of Walt’s newfound brand of havoc alight in the kid’s every pained word and the cowed bow of his body. But even that had been fleeting. Less than a half hour later, Hank had Jesse caught between a rock and a hard spot, had obligated him to record a confession for which Pinkman would reap the consequences if they couldn’t make them stick to Walt. Hank had coerced the kid into staying in Hank's own home, under the guise of protecting him, when really, it was only Hank who stood to gain anything from illegally holding the kid against his will and drugging him into oblivion to ensure he’d cooperate and give the desired performance the next day.

And even then, after the kid had tearfully laid his soul bare for an unknown audience and with uncertain repercussions in store for him, Hank had still toyed with his life. He’d wired the kid up and sent him on a presumed suicide mission, depreciating the potential danger he planned to put Jesse in when Steve questioned his recklessness. Hank had cavalierly assured him of the upside: that even if Pinkman were killed, they’d get it all on tape.

Now with all of it in retrospect, the only testimony to any of it lying dead with Jesse’s frail, beaten body, Hank starts to feel some of the contrition he knows he owes.

Because despite Jesse’s childish antics and infuriating disrespect, he’d tried to do the right thing in the end. He’d unwittingly played pawn to a master manipulator, hardly more than a child caught up in shit that went well beyond his ability to navigate on his own, amongst hardened criminals, whom Jesse never stood a chance of going up against.

He didn’t deserve this ending. He’d been someone’s kid. And Hank knows that even if, God forbid, Walt Jr. ever did turn to drugs or some other destructive behavior a few years down the line after living with the reality of what became of his father, then Hank knows he will still love him. Knows that he’d be devastated to hear the news he knows they’re going to have to relay to this kid’s parents in the very near future.

Hank inwardly recoils in shame, but he can’t help but mitigate it to himself almost instantly.

Of course, he hadn’t known about Todd Alquist back then. He’d never heard of Jack Welker, or his brethren of hard hitters made of hammered steel and rotten agendas, armed to the teeth with a military’s-worth of ordnance.

And there was nothing to be done about unfortunate timing. He’d only just buckled the kid into his car after his little arson-fueled tantrum, and began pulling away from Walt’s house as Walt himself had turned the corner towards them and slowed, eyes boring directly into Hank’s, then glimpsing Jesse beside him before they’d passed one another on the road like nothing had happened. Listless and numb as the kid had been at the time, he’d just stared out the opposite window, oblivious. He hadn’t seen Walt—had no idea how close the devil had been, that he’d been made with the enemy, but Hank had known.

In hindsight, Hank reckons Walt had made his plans before he’d even gotten out of his car that afternoon. Walt was a walking synapse, firing and consuming, desperate, with everything he’d worked for at stake. The mountains of money he’d amassed and killed for, all for the sake of his family, stood to shake apart and dissolve at Jesse’s mercy.

And yet for all of that, Hank had still underestimated Walt. He hadn’t seen it coming. He hadn’t considered the possibility that Walt might attempt to cross the sacred line of family and property alike to get to Jesse, or, in this case, hire the job out to someone like Welker.

Hank knows now just how short-sighted he’d been.

He’d felt impotent— _inept_ —when his house had been vandalized just three days after Jesse had been kidnapped right out from under his own roof; his and Marie’s personal, cherished items overturned and broken, left strewn in the wake of a mad search for Jesse’s confession tape.

Three days. Hank doesn’t know if he’d last three days at the mercy of such brutal men, but Jesse had likely paid a hefty toll for not caving sooner, and Hank somehow knows that it was solely to protect Hank and Marie. 

“He’s a mess…” Steve unknowingly pulls Hank from his thoughts. “But cause of death? I don’t know. Blunt-force trauma? Heat stroke? Dehydration? Could be anything.”

Steve pokes around at Jesse and their surroundings methodically, lifting Jesse’s chained wrists to peer under his arms with his penlight, gloved hands weaving through dirty hair, looking for anything at all. Aside from the stickiness of old blood, they come away with nothing.

Gerald eases his way down the ladder and clicks off another round—close-ups of the body, and Steve sighs again. “I don’t know, man,” he says, fingers tilting Pinkman’s chin back at an awkward angle to search under his cheek, and Hank thinks he sees movement. He thinks he sees the kid’s eyelids flutter, but then wonders if his mind’s playing tricks on him.

He knows he’s too close to this case—too involved. In truth, he’s surprised they’ve let him back on this case at all, let alone giving him the lead on it. But then it happens again: Pinkman’s eyes flutter and open to half-mast, but before Hank can even react, they’re sliding shut again, leaving a crescent of white beneath his lashes. Jesse breathes out a soundless moan, and Steve flinches back, momentarily startled. “Jesus Christ!” he breathes. “Call for medics.”


	2. Resurrection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank had tried to assure himself that he had only felt protective of his evidence, his case, as he dutifully documented the contusions and scars scattered over Jesse’s face, the gash at the back of his skull as a nurse had worked deft fingers through the kid’s blood-matted hair to flush it clean. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks are in order once again to the lovely Porkchop_Sandwiches for the beta. All residual mistakes, however, are mine alone.
> 
> I'm not a medical professional, nor do I have any expansive knowledge of the law or police procedures, so hopefully my fair amount of research (and shameless indulgence in a multitude of trauma room programs) will suffice. 
> 
> That being said, I'll issue a TW for medical procedures and blood, as well as for the inference of past rape. I've already tagged this work as Non-Con to be extra cautious.
> 
> Concrit welcome, but please be respectful. <3

**Chapter Two: _Resurrection_**

“What’s the word?” Steve hands a fresh cup of coffee over to Hank and slurps from his own, casting a glance through the glass partition at Pinkman. He’s still laid flat out in a c-collar, wires and tubes snaking all around him.

“Like you said. Kid’s a mess,” Hank offers dryly, scrubbing a hand over his stubbled chin. “Massive infection, head trauma, cracked ribs…” He trails off, shaking his head. “He’s a little touch and go. His head CT showed some bruising, but the doctors are _cautiously optimistic_ that it will resolve. I guess we’ll know more when he wakes up.” He rubs the back of his neck, avoiding Steve’s eyes. “I’ve seen a lot of shit…” he adds, letting the rest hang in the air for Steve to parse out on his own, and he passes Gerald’s camera over, screen set to view previous photos. 

Steve takes it and starts flicking through the images.

* * *

Hank had insisted on taking over Gerald’s job back at the compound, and whether Gerald had been angry about Hank stepping on his toes or happy to leave work early, Hank didn’t really know or care. 

The medics had denied Hank access in the medevac chopper in route to the hospital, with consideration to the limited space, but once in the emergency room, they’d allowed him to recede to the corner of the curtained area, where he’d scrambled to discern the medical jargon the ambulatory doctor had relayed to the doctor in the ER. He’d remembered enough from his days in APD to deduce that they’d sedated the kid, most likely to maintain his airway and keep him from thrashing, but aside from that, the clipped questions and responses might as well have been spoken in a foreign language, for all he understood of them.

Between a flurry of white coats and blue scrubs, Hank had watched as they’d removed the confines of the straps immobilizing the kid and cut away the remainder of his clothing, the filthy scraps littering the floor. They’d rolled him onto his side to extract the stretcher, exposing a mass of black bruising over his right side, extending down and around his kidneys, and Hank’s throat had constricted uncomfortably.

He’d focused the camera on Jesse’s torso and snapped multiple shots, moved the view finder over the rest of his back to capture both old scars and newer lacerations, some scabbed over, some still seeping. Like a tree, he’d been carved possessively with initials—an L and a K, both livid red, spanning rib to rib amongst cigarette burns and less artful scrapes and cuts. Hank had recorded them individually and collectively, around the gloved fingers probing for injuries along the kid’s spine. 

Hank had tried to assure himself that he had only felt protective of his evidence, his case, as he dutifully documented the contusions and scars scattered over Jesse’s face, the gash at the back of his skull as a nurse had worked deft fingers through the kid’s blood-matted hair to flush it clean. 

Bruises marred the outside edges of the kid’s forearms, a testament of defense, and his hands bore similar telltale marks. The grime lodged under the fingernails that weren’t worn down and torn ragged, and the marks left behind on his wrists the mementos of months spent in bondage. 

Jesse had seemed even smaller than usual under the bright exam lights, bare and helpless, his hipbone all too prominent, skin pale and smooth with the last vestiges of boyhood beneath the purple blossoms that belied whole-hearted struggles under heavy hands.

When a faceless voice had requested a rape kit, Hank regretted not leaving Gerald’s job to Gerald.

They had eased Jesse onto his back again, and Hank had watched on, disconnected, as the kid surfaced enough to start struggling, weakly resisting the hands tending him. 

They’d given him more sedation then, and once his body had melted into chemical submission, Hank had finished Gerald’s job with numb fingers.

* * *

Steve pauses between photos, and Hank sees the images in his head again. He squeezes his eyes shut briefly, trying to banish them from his mind. 

“ _God,_ ” Steve whispers, shaking his head as he hands the camera back to Hank, avoiding his eyes. 

“You get a hold of his parents?” Hank asks, depressing the power button on the camera, shutting it down lest he have to see it all again. 

“Out of the country,” Steve says. “I left a message, talked to the neighbor. They took the kid’s brother to England for some kind of academic award and a tour of the U.K. I guess at least one of them lived up to Mommy and Daddy’s expectations.”

Hank reflects on that a moment—at the time and money the Pinkmans must spend on a kid he vaguely recalls being around Walt Jr.’s age. He envisions the lavish attention and encouragement that must be focused on this child and wonders how the same set of parents failed to instill much more than a fundamental sense of autonomy and self-esteem in Jesse.

Hank wonders if Steve’s having as hard a time digesting Jesse’s predicament as Hank is himself, grappling with the fact that Jesse’s not only their sole witness and a suspect to whatever extent his involvement proves to be in this case, but also a victim of one of—if not _the_ most savage crime the pair have ever worked together during their time in the DEA.

“What time is it?” Steve asks, stifling a yawn. 

“Quarter to five. Go home,” Hank instructs Steve. “I’ll meet you back here in the morning if I don’t talk to you sooner.” 

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Steve concedes, the exhaustion all too apparent in his eyes. “What’s your plan? You going to get some sleep for yourself?”

“I’m heading to the station. I’m praying we have footage from those cameras.”

“Okay,” Steve nods. “I’ll call if I hear from the kid’s folks.”

Hank waves his cup vaguely at Steve in way of farewell; watches as the sliding doors swallow him up, closing behind him with a whoosh of air.

The shift nurse comes by a moment later for her rounds as Hank’s finishing his coffee. She slips Jesse’s chart under her arm and pulls on a pair of gloves. “Long day,” she laments. It’s the mother of understatements, Hank thinks, and he huffs a glum laugh in acknowledgment. 

“They’re keeping him sedated for now,” she tells him, backing the door open with her hip and holding it there. Hank steals a quick glance at Jesse, who hasn’t shifted in the slightest since he was wheeled up to ICU. “It would be a good time to go get some rest. You look like you could use it.” Her eyes crinkle softly at the corners as she gives him a tight smile, tempering the sting Hank might otherwise feel at the comment on his appearance.

“I wish I could.” he says, tossing the foam cup and the dregs of his coffee in the bin as he leaves. 

* * *

“What’ve you got for me?” Hank questions the few members of his team left working at this hour once he’s through the door, bagged dinner in hand.

Connor’s on it, eager to prove himself, striding up beside Hank to fill him in as they head for Hank’s office. “We have a secondary residence for Todd Alquist. Our guys are there now, ripping the place apart. And we have video. About 72 hours’ worth before the shooting took place.” Hank eyes him sideways and can tell the guy’s suppressing a smile, trying for a tough-guy varietal of casual.

“You can be happy about it.” Hank assures him, setting his food and keys on his desk. “Anything else?” 

“Well, we have another suspect.”

“Show me.” 

* * *

“So, this is about two and a half days before the murders. You can see Alquist here, getting into his El Camino, which we’re still searching for. He loads two black tote bags into the back, locks it up, and off he goes. We don’t see him again.” 

“Okay,” Hank motions for Connor to continue, chewing the last of his burger and crumpling the wrapper.

“Then the day before the shooting, in the evening, we see this truck arrive.” Connor points to the far-right corner of the conference room television screen, where a service truck pulls up and parks outside the gate of the compound. Hank tries to make out the wording on the door of the truck but can’t decipher it. “This guy gets out and, Kenny—we think he was Welker’s second in command—goes to meet him. Then they go back in the clubhouse, and they’re in there for an hour or so.” Connor pauses the screen there for Hank to study. 

“Can we push in on that truck and work on the clarity?”

Connor shakes his head. “We’ve tried. And we checked their surveillance from all the other angles. There’s no way to read the plates. I’m not sure if the guy parked like that on purpose or if it was just coincidence, but we’re screwed there.”

He fast-forwards from there, and the screen darkens with the onset of night, remaining almost black until a bright light fills the screen. Connor pushes play, then backs it up a few seconds. The light fills the screen again, and Hank realizes it’s likely a motion-sensing floodlight flashing on. Sure enough, a moment later, there’s movement on the screen. Kenny, as well as the guy from the truck, and a third. “That’s Lester, another one of our late Nazi pals,” Connor explains.

The three men saunter out into the open area in front of the clubhouse, and appear to be bullshitting and laughing, bottles of beer in hand, puffing away on their cigarettes. 

“These three shoot the breeze, and then we see them move off in the direction of that underground hole.” Connor’s eyes flick over to Hank, gauging his reaction. 

They watch as the men retreat to the left corner of the screen, weaving in and out of view as they appear to unlock the metal grate and heft a ladder down into the opening. 

Hank’s stomach sinks when Jesse ascends, in the company of the three men still engaged in friendly-looking banter. Once at the top, Kenny pulls Jesse in tow, chained hand and foot as he’d been when they’d found him. Jesse jogs awkwardly behind them, limping with a shortened gait, until he can’t keep up and falls forward onto his knees. He attempts to get back up but can’t get his feet under himself long enough before Kenny’s momentum pulls him off balance again, and he hits the ground a second time. With his arms wrenched taut in front of him, Jesse’s unable to catch himself, and his face strikes the ground. His captors turn and appear to laugh before Lester comes back around to yank Jesse back up to his feet, pulling him along until they’re beyond the reaches of the camera’s eye. 

“They come back out at 2:03am,” Connor says stoically, fast forwarding through the video until another flash of light indicates movement in front of the clubhouse. The guy from the truck comes out first, turning back around to wait as Lester joins him, Kenny finally appearing with Jesse, limp and slung over his shoulder. 

Hank swallows hard as he watches the men shaking hands, the guy from the truck giving a quick flick of the head in the way of a goodbye, while Lester and Kenny move off in the direction of the hole, Jesse’s chained arms swaying and bumping against Kenny’s back with the movement. Outside, past the proximity of the floodlight, Hank can vaguely track Lester opening the grate, and Kenny, as he unceremoniously _dumps_ Jesse in. A ball of fury begins to burn in Hank’s stomach at that, knowing firsthand the depth of the underground prison, the unforgiving solidness of its concrete floor; the injuries that fall had caused. 

“It’s like nothing out of the ordinary to them. Just another day at the office.” Connor pauses the video, taking a long pull from his water bottle and clearing his voice. “Lester and Kenny head back into the clubhouse after that. Welker and a few of his guys come and go in Welker’s truck, but no other vehicles come in or out. No one else comes or goes. Pinkman doesn’t show up again. He likely remained there until we found him.”

Both men fall silent for a beat.

“Like I said,” Connor shrugs. “Alquist doesn’t return. There’s not much else to see until the shootings, and there isn’t anything more there that we didn’t already know.”

“Don’t worry,” Hank nods, fixing his eyes on Connor’s, though he seems to feel his own reassurance as much as he means to impart it to Connor: "We’re going to find him”

* * *

Hank turns onto Holly Avenue and glimpses the squad cars marking his destination before he even needs to check the address. It’s an old building, nondescript. The perfect place to fly beneath the radar, so to speak. 

He amends that thought once he nears Todd Alquist’s apartment. The front door is cordoned off with yellow tape, and a nosy neighbor—no, landlord, apparently—stands there rattling off every one of Alquist’s comings and goings from a set of written notes to poor Simmons, who looks as though he’s nearing the end of his patience.

“Thank you,” Simmons says, voice tight with restrained irritation. “We’ll call you if we have any questions.” 

Unluckily for Simmons, the landlord, Lou Schanzer (as he points out for the second time in the short time Hank’s been within earshot), doesn’t take his cue to leave, and instead, starts a recitation of his resume, including his time served in the military as well as the APD over three decades prior, before some of Hank’s guys had even shot their first load and the force even knew what DNA was. 

Hank steps around them, patting Simmons on the shoulder in sympathy as he enters the apartment. 

Inside, Hank’s guys look up briefly to acknowledge him, buried deep in latex gloves and collection bags as they are, and Hank takes a moment to acclimate to the time hop he’s taken into this bizarre living space, with its low-hanging cabinets and mis-matched furniture pieces. It seems clean enough, but it’s cold, suitably so, considering its resident. 

There’s a tarantula in the bedroom, which skitters to the far corner of its terrarium as Hank approaches, and he imagines Todd might have enjoyed pulling the thing’s legs off one at a time for sport before he’d pulled his disappearing act. 

Among a neatly made bed and a closet full of fairly drab clothing, nothing suspicious jumps out at him. No loose floorboards or secret hiding spots as far as Hank can tell, and he’s usually pretty good at spotting them, especially after his guys have already shaken the top layer loose. 

A search of the living room proves equally unproductive. He rifles around in the kitchen, then picks up a cookbook, shaking out the pages, quickly flipping through them. He sets it down and repeats the process on the next two to no avail. 

He picks up a small notepad, giving it similar treatment, when a business card drops from the sheaf of pages. 

_Kandy Welding Co._

_1959 Odella Road NE_

_Albuquerque, NM 87105_

_505-236-5575_

_Neil Kandy_

_Owner_

An image comes to Hank then—of Steve holding a metal hook and rope harness, suspended by a railway of metal, welded to withstand any effort of escape. Welded by someone seedy enough to consort with the likes of Welker’s men. Welded, deliberately, for abhorrent reasons. 

Hank squeezes the card in the palm of his hand as he tears out of the apartment.

* * *

“You’ve reached Kandy Welding,” a snide-sounding man informs. “Leave a message and we’ll call you back.” 

Hank snaps his phone shut, ending the call, even as he pulls into the driveway of Kandy Welding.

The gravel of the torn parking lot crunches beneath Hank’s shoes as he tries what looks to be the front door of the establishment—if it could be called that. Neither the address nor the business name is visible from the front, but that might be the very point: keeping business to a limited and select few. Either way, it’s locked, as are the back and side doors. He pounds the frame of the metal screen several times, announces himself as DEA, but he’s fairly certain no one’s there. It’s reasonable, he supposes, that this late in the evening, a welder would have gone home for the day, but he knows it’s just as reasonable, if not likely, that a business owner would still be there, wrapping up the day’s books, adjusting tomorrow’s schedule.

Hank digs in his pocket for his phone. “Connor, yeah, it’s me,” Hank affirms. “See what you can dig up on Kandy Welding, K-A-N-D-Y, over on Odella Road. Find out who works for them, everything. Yeah, I think that’s our visitor.”


	3. Resurgence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank recalls the time he’d pulled Jesse out of the inferno he’d tried to construct in Walt’s house. Afterward, back at Hank’s house, he’d shaken out a couple of sleeping pills and imposed them on a rabid version of Jesse, and when the kid emerged from the guest room a day and a half later, the drugs and rebellion drained out of him, a gentle sense of humility had crept to the surface that Hank hadn’t known existed. Something told him it was the quintessential Jesse, though, long buried beneath smirks and bravado that fell away with his options and the jeopardy of his freedom. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again to Porkchop_Sandwiches for the beta. Any residual mistakes are inherently mine.
> 
> I'm not a medical expert, nor do I have any expansive knowledge of the law or police procedures, so I hope that my brief research has sufficiently enabled me to write a fairly-believable story.
> 
> Constructive Criticism is welcome, however, please be respectful.

**Chapter Three: _Resurgence_**

Sleep had hit him like a freight train the night before and dragged him deep. Marie had poured him a whisky before bed, a good three fingers, and he’d barely relayed the major details of the last day and a half to her by the time he’d dozed off, propped up against the pillows with the light of the evening news flickering across the room. 

But now, after a solid nine hours’ sleep and with one of Marie’s hearty breakfasts in him … well, if he’s not walking on sunshine, he’s at least amply restored.

His phone rings, and he flips it open, maneuvering the steering wheel around to slip into a parking spot in front of Presbyterian Hospital. “Schrader,” he answers.

“Hey, you close by?”

“Hey Gomie, yeah, just rolling up,” he assures Steve. 

“I just got off the phone with Pinkman’s father. Guy makes Merkert seem warm and fuzzy.”

“Let me guess,” Hank sighs, switching his phone to the other hand. “They’re not coming.”

“Nope. He says they booked this trip months ago and aren’t planning on returning for another six weeks. They want us to tell their son that they’ll arrange to speak with him when they get back.” The condescending tone Steve uses to affect his voice speaks louder than a snide remark about the Pinkmans, and Hank can’t help but agree with the sentiment. 

He shakes his head as though it might cast off some of the irritation he feels towards Mr. and Mrs. Pinkman, but it would take a lot more than that to dispel his astonishment. “Arrange to speak with him? Like a client? Do they understand the gravity of their kid’s situation?”

“Insofar as I explained it,” Steve affirms. “But whether they consider Jesse’s problems any of their own immediate concern—that’s the million-dollar question, and I’d be willing to bet no. Kid got any other family that you know of?”

“None. And I mean _nobody_ ,” Hank says. “He lived with his aunt until she died a couple years ago, but that’s the extent of it.”

“Ouch. That’s rough,” Steve concedes.

“’How’s the kid doing, he awake?” Hank asks, anxious to get down to business.

“Yeah, they just took him for a repeat CT. He’s about as well as can be expected at the moment, I suppose. So, are you coming in or not? I forgot I’d scheduled a doctor’s appointment this morning, and I don’t want to cancel. Guy’s nagging me about my blood pressure again.” 

“Yeah--getting on the elevator now.”

* * *

Hank catches up with Steve in the waiting room and gives him a slap to the arm. “Hey, you think he’ll be in any condition to talk this morning? This Alquist guy’s just slipping further and further away.”

“I dunno, man.” Steve purses his lips together, shaking his head. “I’d like to say yeah, but my gut says no. Listen,” Steve drops his voice and leans in a little, hands spread in entreaty. “I want this Alquist guy as much as you do, but one wrong word—one unintentional move—and the kid might shut down on us. You don’t know where his head is going to be. That’s some profound trauma there, and I’m not even talking about his physical injuries. He only just started coming around to you before this whole mess. God knows how much of this he’s going to blame on you if he decides that you put him in harm’s way to start with. You don’t want to set him off and have Psych come crawling up your ass. Just tread lightly.”

“Got it.” Hank acquiesces, all too willing, in his discomfiture, to segue from the subject of Jesse’s conceivable emotional trauma and the way it came about. “Hey, I’ve got a lead on a guy from the compound. You ever hear of Kandy Welding?”

“Nah,” Steve says. “You wanna go rattle some cages?”

“Hell yeah, I do. Call me when you’re done.”

“Alright,” Steve agrees, but then his face turns solemn again, an unspoken expectation for the weight there to be acknowledged, their new differences in rank be damned. “Tread lightly.” He repeats. 

“I will,” Hank nods. “I promise. Thanks, Gomie.”

“Good luck, man.”

* * *

Hank checks in at the nurse’s station and deposits himself in a chair in the waiting room. He closes his eyes and listens to the sounds of rubber soles on linoleum and the low droning of the news channel on the television mounted on the wall across from him. 

He figures he needs to work an angle here, and carefully at that, but no inspiration comes to mind. He’s not the gentlest of men, which Jesse already knows first-hand. He worries if a soft approach will come off false, but his usual bad-cop routine won’t work here by a long-shot, even if it was somehow warranted and he was the slightest bit inclined to try it. 

He thinks of Marie then, acknowledges how tolerant she’s been about his long hours as of late, when he knows she must get lonely in the evenings after work. He thinks about her strong but gentle nature and wonders how she’d handle a situation like this; imagines how she might guide this wounded kid through his recollection of Hell to meet her own ends. She’d probably wrap him up and cart him home to spoon feed, and Hank huffs through his nose at the ludicrous thought.

“Agent Schrader?” Hank starts, surprised that he’d been so lost in thought that he’d failed to recognize the sound of the doctor’s footfalls approaching.

“Yes,” he answers, straightening himself up. 

“Hi, I’m Dr. Greene. I’m in charge of Jesse Pinkman’s care.” He extends his hand and a firm handshake. “Do you know if any of his family members will be coming by to check on him at some point?”

“No,” Hank states flatly. “They’re not coming.” He feels a scant amount of obligation to explain the situation to the doctor who’s just doing his job, but he can’t see how it’s relevant to Jesse’s care, and Hank can’t really bring himself to relay the Pinkmans’ apparent disdain for their own son anyhow. “I’m it.”

Dr. Greene’s eyebrows shoot up momentarily before he restores his expression into something more clinically acceptable. “I see,” he says evenly, jabbing notes into Jesse’s chart. Hank can’t help the validation he feels at the doctor’s reaction. “Well, then,” Dr. Greene sighs, casting a quick glance around them as if trying to pinpoint where to start. “We just finished a repeat head CT, and it is unchanged from yesterday, which is good. We’ve taken him off of sedation, removed the breathing tube and cleared him of any spinal injuries. We’re going to continue monitoring him for now, until his vitals are stable, and the infection is under control. He’s sleeping at the moment. I’m sure this morning proved fairly exhausting for him, but you can go in and see him. 

“Good. That’s good news,” Hank says, standing up and reaching out to shake Dr. Greene’s hand again.

“On one condition,” Dr. Greene adds, politeness coated around a warning. “Keep it simple. No excitement.” 

“Yeah, of course.” Hank nods in assent, annoyed that everyone around him seems bent on reminding him to exercise his best judgement.

He heads back through the ICU and into Jesse’s room. Like Greene had said, the kid’s out like a light, but thankfully, he appears to be resting comfortably, no longer encumbered by the neck brace, his face soft with sleep instead of lifeless with the oppression of heavy drugs.

The chair next to the kid’s bed is more comfortable than the one in the waiting room, and Hank leans back into it, sighing appreciatively. He’d brought a few sections of the morning’s paper in his back pocket, and he unfurls them now, heading straight for the sports pages. He reads through the entirety of the articles then studies the scores, letting loose a quiet but victorious chuckle at the results, mentally calculating how much he’s won off office bets. He scours the headlines of the morning’s news, and he’s about to get up for a coffee when he casts a glance up and sees that Jesse’s awake.

He sets the paper down in his lap, movements slow as he watches Jesse’s eyes wander across the ceiling. Hank looks upwards, but there’s nothing to see there, save for pristine white drop tiles and air-conditioning vents. He thinks Jesse might still be dreaming, his eyelids heavy, no trace of tension around them, and Hank hopes he’s in a peaceful place for the moment. 

Peaceful or not, the moment doesn’t last long. 

Jesse jerks suddenly, arms flailing wide as if to catch himself falling, and Hank’s out of his seat before he realizes it, returning Jesse’s arms safely to his sides, ensuring he’s not tugging at the I.V. line and needle taped into the side of the kid’s wrist. “You’re safe,” Hank hushes him, palming pressure into the kid’s shoulder. “You’re safe.”

Jesse’s breath comes in gasps and his eyes slide sideways to land on Hank, his surroundings clearly just registering. 

Hank realizes he’s hovering, and guesses it’s intimidating, if Jesse’s wary focus on him is any indication. He pulls the chair closer to the bed and lowers himself back into it as he gives the kid a moment to wake fully.

Jesse’s eyes drift to the corner of the room as if images were playing back for him there in living color, seemingly recalling the recent past. His brows furrow, the white line of a scar bisecting the right one, just missing his eye then continuing down the swell of his cheek, still somewhat rounded with his youth, despite the obvious malnutrition that has hollowed dark circles under his eyes.

By the time his gaze returns to Hank, a vacancy has settled in, making his face impossible to read. Hank’s prepared to absorb some misdirected anger for all that Jesse’s had to endure: for his captivity and beyond; for a childhood apparently lacking in parental compassion, for whatever shit he’s been exposed to since falling into the hands of his bastard brother-in-law, and subsequently, a bunch of sick, sadistic fucks. 

He’s ready for the venom he expects Jesse to spit at him for Hank’s own transgressions—for the beating, and at least in part for the abduction, for assuring Jesse of his safety and downplaying the danger he’d been in before using him to further his investigation.

But Hank’s a tough son-of-a-bitch, used to taking such abuse on the job as much as he’s used to dishing it out, and truthfully, Hank knows he deserves a good deal of it. He’s willing to take ownership for it, and all the vitriol that comes with it. 

What he’s not prepared for is the kid’s complete submission. 

Gone is the cocky little shit with his profanities and defiance; a beaten young man in his place, and Hank feels a pang of regret that his is the first familiar face that Jesse sees. 

Tears fill the kid’s eyes and his lower lip trembles, but he keeps his breaths measured, controlled to a degree, and Hank can tell he’s struggling to keep his composure, to maintain eye contact. 

“How,” Jesse croaks, and he coughs, growls into his palm, with distinct frustration. “How much time am I looking at?” His voice breaks, gravelly and breathy, almost nonexistent and wholly unlike his own. “I’ll cooperate,” he implores, his eyes conveying the earnestness that he simply cannot seem to get across verbally. “I just,” he forces out, winded. “I just want to know.” 

Hank recalls the time he’d pulled Jesse out of the inferno he’d tried to construct in Walt’s house. Afterward, back at Hank’s house, he’d shaken out a couple of sleeping pills and imposed them on a rabid version of Jesse, and when the kid emerged from the guest room a day and a half later, the drugs and rebellion drained out of him, a gentle sense of humility had crept to the surface that Hank hadn’t known existed. Something told him it was the quintessential Jesse, though, long buried beneath smirks and bravado that fell away with his options and the jeopardy of his freedom. 

Now it seems that humility’s all that’s left, magnified tenfold.

Hank releases a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, his shoulders drooping a bit in both sympathy and relief. He sees the light at the far, far end of a long tunnel, but it’s there, nonetheless. One step closer to Alquist and case closure, albeit at an exorbitant cost to Jesse.

Hank reaches over the head of the bed and pushes the call button for the nurse. He doesn’t miss the flinch, or the way Jesse’s eyes dart away as though he’s hoping Hank hadn’t noticed. 

“I don’t know,” Hank answers, because really, he doesn’t. Not yet. Distribution of meth at this level alone comes with some pretty hefty consequences—some serious time behind bars, aside from any other charges the DA might rustle up, or any subsequent evidence that might come to light and implicate Jesse in something further. 

Throwing this kid back into a cage is the last thing Hank wants to do. Jesse’s clearly paid his dues and then some, and Hank doesn’t even think he’d have the heart to slap a pair of cuffs on the poor kid’s wrists at this point, but he’s not going to have much leverage to do otherwise, unless he finds Alquist. 

Hank leans in, keeping his voice as soft and soothing as he can manage. “Cooperate, like you said, and I’ll do everything I can to help you. I give you my word.” 

From where Jesse sits, it’s probably not the most comforting answer. Hank’s word probably doesn’t amount to much anymore, as far as Jesse’s concerned, but it’s the best Hank can do at the moment.

The nurse pops her head in, and Hank beckons her over. “He needs some water.” Hank realizes it comes out as more of an order than a request, and he presses his lips into a tight smile in way of a please and thank you.

“Of course.” She doesn’t appear too put off, thankfully. Hank guesses she’s used to such gruffness from her patients and their families, but her eyes flick to Jesse then back to Hank, and he knows she’s taking close measure of Hank’s every move and Jesse’s responses to them. “I’ll be right back for my rounds. I’ll bring some water with me.”

Hank draws a deep breath, rubs his hand over his mouth and reminds himself of the thin line he’s walking. Too close to this case, indeed.

Jesse shifts slightly and winces, his right arm lurching to press up instinctively against his ribs. He looks wan and uncomfortable, the blue of his irises paler than usual. Hank gathers one of the unused pillows at the head of the bed, and guides the kid’s arm up gently, stuffing the pillow firmly against his side, and then resting his arm back on top of it. Hank can feel the unhealthy heat of a fever pouring off of him. The kid’s so fucking breakable right now; his slight wrist, covered in tape and tubing at odds with the bold tattoo creeping down to the back of his hand. 

“Just rest a minute,” Hank encourages him, just as grateful for a rest from the disconcerting emotional onslaught of giving a fuck.

Jesse nods, and his eyes close obediently, moisture gathering at the corners of his eyelashes as he trembles, clearly exhausted even after this miniscule amount of conversation and the obviously monumental effort not to cry.

By the time the nurse returns, ice water in hand, Jesse’s calmed himself somewhat. She tilts the bed up a bit and holds the straw to his split lips, keeping the cup steady for him as his shaking fingers wrap around it, trying for some semblance of control. He manages only a few sips before he sags back into the pillow, completely spent.

He’s on the verge of sleep again, Hank can tell, blinking heavily, body loose even as the nurse jostles him, checking vitals and drawing blood, and Hank gets up to let her finish unmanaged, figuring he’ll get some lunch while the kid rests. He’s just about to leave, when fingertips brush against his pantleg, hardly more than a ghost of a touch.

“Lydia,” Jesse breathes.

“What?” Hank pauses for a beat. “Lydia who?” His mind scrambles, his heart picking up its pace as the hint of a lead lures him into the familiar headspace of his work. The only Lydia that comes to mind is the one from Madrigal, but it fits. “You mean the Rodarte-Quayle woman?”

He leans in for an answer, but Jesse’s eyes are already rolling back into his head. 


	4. Revive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This has always been his favorite part of a case. That moment when the leads start popping up, the story starts to click into place, the excitement building like he’s at the start of a drag race, eyeing the competitor in his peripheral vision. Except this time, it’s personal, as much as he tries to keep an objective frame of mind. He can’t help an almost savage desire to kill Walt even beyond the bounds of physical death—to kill his reputation, the legend that was Heisenberg. Conversely, and to Hank’s own surprise, he can’t deny a foreign and unwanted urge to protect Jesse from any more of the fallout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many more thanks to Porkchop_Sandwiches for continuing to beta. Any residual mistakes are inherently mine.
> 
> Again, I'm not a medical expert, nor do I have any expansive knowledge of the law or police procedures, so I hope that my brief research has sufficiently enabled me to write a fairly-believable story.
> 
> Constructive Criticism is welcome, however, please be respectful.

**Chapter Four: _Revive_**

“Lydia? That’s all he said?” 

“Yeah.” Hank sighs, unwrapping his pastrami on rye. “Well, that’s the only _information_ I got out of him. He figures he’s going to serve time, said he wanted to cooperate... He gave me the name then passed out cold. He wasn’t awake more than about ten, fifteen minutes total.”

“Well, considering the shape he’s in … I guess it’s just going take some time.” 

“Time we don’t have,” Hank grumbles.

“So, you think Madrigal was involved with these Nazi lowlifes?” Steve eyes him quizzically, picking the onions out of his sub. “I mean, with Fring, yeah, I could see that. The guy was put together, had credible fronts, sources of his own, alibies, connections with the cartel, the cover of shipments through Los Pollos Hermanos... From what the kid said on that tape, his lab was clean and tight. But _these_ guys. I don’t see a company like Madrigal associating with a group of felons like that, producing their meth in some ramshackle warehouse.” Steve takes a bite his sandwich and wipes his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “They’re not the most inconspicuous bunch.”

“Maybe Madrigal has nothing to do with these guys at the compound,” Hank suggests. “At least as far as they know.” 

“I suppose Lydia does have Madrigal’s resources at her disposal,” Steve concedes. “And a big set of balls, if that’s what she’s been doing. You think the kid was cooking for these guys? That she was distributing?”

“The residue of the meth at the compound was 97 percent. Heisenberg level. The kid’s the only other person who knew how to cook that shit Walt’s way. I mean, aside from Boetticher. If Pinkman was cooking for them, it wasn’t voluntarily, obviously, but yeah,” Hank nods, “I do. It makes sense.”

“Madrigal’s based in Germany, right? It would explain Blue Sky showing up in Eastern Europe,” Steve agrees. “I was just going through the files last night. I didn’t see anything that would make me think she’s connected to anyone at that compound, but I’ll look again with that in mind. In the meantime, do you want me to put eyes on this broad?”

“No. Not yet. She’s a stress case as it is, and I don’t want her scaring Alquist further away if she knows where he is, and she catches us trailing her. Let’s find something on her first.” Hank’s draining the rest of his soda when a thought occurs to him. “Does the media know about Pinkman?”

“No,” Steve answers, “We haven’t released anything as of yet. You think Alquist suspects he’s alive?”

“I don’t know, but let’s keep tight-lipped about it anyway. Don’t give the press any information.”

“You’re the boss.”

“So, this Kandy Welding…”

* * *

“DEA, we want to talk to you,” Hank shouts as he pounds the foremost door of the Kandy Welding building. By 10am there should be someone on site, and Hank leans in toward the door to listen for movement inside.

At long last, a thin man with a red mustache and a receding hairline opens the door. “What can I do for you?” He’s not feigned cheery innocence, but the tight set of his jaw tips Hank off to the fact that the guy’s nervous about something. 

“We’re looking for Neil,” Hank offers, casting a casual glance inside, and he notes that the man moves his body just a fraction of an inch to block his view. 

“Oh, yeah, Neil’s not here. He’s out sick.” 

“Out sick, huh.” Hank plays along even as he blatantly sizes the guy up. “Gomie, is the flu going around right now?”

“Not that I’ve heard of,” Steve adds, sickly saccharine. “What with all this warm weather, I don’t think the official flu season’s set to start for a little while yet.”

“Geesh, summer flu. That’s awful. Maybe we should check in on him.” Hank tilts his head and eyes the guy hard, letting sarcasm coat his words thickly. “You think he’s too sick to talk for a few short minutes?”

The guy at the door starts to object, but Hank interrupts. “’Cause we’re doing a little investigation here, and if I find out that you’ve lied to us, and this guy turns up guilty … well, let’s just say we make an orange jumpsuit in your size.”

The man seems to pause for a moment before digging his heels in again. “I swear, he’s sick, as far as I know.”

“As far as you know,” Hank repeats. “You wouldn’t happen to have a picture of Neil, would you? There aren’t any cute little family photos on his desk, a picture of him and his old lady that we could borrow?”

The man at the door seems caught off guard for a moment, but his eyes narrow at Hank. “No.”

“Have it your way,” Hank says, pulling a mini spiral-bound note pad from his back pocket. “I’m going to need to see your I.D. Just in case I need to find _you_.”

The man hesitates a moment before grudgingly pulling out his wallet and handing his driver’s license over.

Hank gives the man a triumphant smile as he takes the I.D. “ _Casey_ ,” Hanks reads aloud, writing the name on the pad of paper. “Steve, what’s that song? Casey Jones? What was it he was high on? Meth?”

“I think it was cocaine, but it’s all the same right?” Steve levels his gaze at Casey.

“That’s right.” Hank snaps the fingers of his free hand with feigned remembrance. “Gotta love the Dead. Well, Casey. You’re free to get back to …whatever it is you do, here. We’ll see you later,” Hank taunts as they retreat to Hank’s car. 

“Guy’s dirty,” Steve mutters under his breath.

“Like your mama’s panties,” Hank quips, smirking.

“What would you know about my mama’s panties?” Steve smiles and throws the jab right back. “You been jerking off thinking about them again, Weto?”

“You know it,” Hank replies, deadpan. “Alright, I’m gonna go check in on Sleeping Beauty. I’ll drop you off at the station on the way. And do me a favor? Look into that Neil Kandy guy for me while you’re there? I have Connor working on it. See what he’s found out.”

“You know it,” Steve echoes.

* * *

Hank cranes his head tentatively around the door, and finds Jesse sitting up in his bed, a covered bowl sitting untouched on a tray in front of him.

“How are you feeling?” Hank asks, plopping into the chair next to him as he sticks a piece of gum into his mouth. 

Jesse shrugs. “I’m alive.” 

Hanks bites down hard and swallows around his gum. “That you are.” He doesn’t know if Jesse receives that fact with solace or burden, perhaps both, but Hank can see an abundance of feeling simmering just beneath the surface; in the set of his shoulders, the way his eyes reflect a dark abyss of emotion.

It reminds him of his own struggles in the hospital, agonizing over whether or not he’d ever walk again, the depression setting in so thick that it felt like he could scarcely breathe at times.

“You’re not going to stay that way for long if you don’t eat,” Hank chastises. “You can’t afford to lose any more weight.”

“’m not hungry,” Jesse mumbles, obviously versed in both depression _and_ self-loathing, Hank sees.

“Well, you’re going to end up on a feeding tube if you don’t develop an appetite pretty soon. And let me tell you, that won’t be any fun. Come on,” Hank encourages, pulling the top off the bowl of which the contents look fairly mild. “Looks like some chicken broth. You can manage that.” Hank pushes it closer to Jesse, and remains close, hoping his proximity will discourage any argument.

Just like Hank had suspected he would, Jesse rolls his eyes before leaning forward to take a spoonful. After only two more, however, he looks hopefully at Hank as though that meager amount will satisfy him. God, the kid must have been a handful as a child. It would be almost comical if Jesse didn’t need the nutrients so badly. 

“Keep going,” Hank orders, and receives only a sigh in opposition this time. 

After consuming half of the bowl, Jesse pushes it away. “Yo, I’m gonna throw up if I eat any more,” he states bitterly, and judging by the way he visibly pales, Hank believes him. It likely doesn’t take much to fill him up these days.

Hank moves the tray away, and Jesse settles back into the pillows, his color improving slightly after a few moments. The kid’s staring hard at his feet, his brow furrowed, and it looks like he’s gearing up to say something heavy. 

“What’s on your mind, kiddo,” Hank coaxes.

Jesse takes a breath as if to start and fails, his fortitude seemingly fleeting. He screws his eyes shut and tries again. “I know I don’t deserve it,” he says tentatively, casting a furtive glance at Hank. “And, I know you don’t owe me anything, but if I asked you to do something for me, would you do it?” 

It catches Hank off guard. He’d expected a confession of sorts, for Jesse to unburden himself of his demons, to give up leads and information; anything but asking for favors. The kid has some nerve petitioning for accommodations in his position, and Hank bristles at bit at the idea. He scoffs and holds his hands up, about to flat out deny him when Jesse starts in again.

“Please,” He petitions, voice soft with desperation. “I don’t have anyone else to ask. Call it a final request. I won’t even ask for a phone call when you bring me in.” The look Jesse flashes at Hank almost resembles the defiant, scrappy kid he’d known six months before, but it vanishes as quickly as it came, abysmal hopelessness settling in its place as Jesse closes his eyes and shakes his head, clearly already resigned to the rejection he believes must be coming.

Like the kid had said, he really has no one, save for a couple of stragglers, so what could possibly be so important, Hank can only imagine. He doesn’t care to play courier between meth heads the likes of Badger or Skinny Pete, or act as Cupid to Wendy on Jesse’s behalf. It’s only sheer, morbid curiosity that compels him to entertain the subject any further. “I can’t say I’ll agree to it, but you can ask,” he permits.

Jesse nods in silent acknowledgment. “Brock Cantillo,” he finally says.

The name means nothing to Hank, and the silence that trails after it only confuses him further. Hank’s about to roll his own eyes, impatience bubbling up, but then Jesse’s hand comes up to cover his face, his shoulders hitching with silent sobs. 

Unlike working in the APD, employment within the DEA requires zero comforting skills. It’s a know-how he possesses at some primitive level, almost exclusively reserved for his wife in times of dire need, and as long as it’s been since his time as a street cop, his almost useless ability to soothe someone is rusty at best. The thought of extending such an intimate courtesy to a drug-addicted criminal, however piteous, makes him uncomfortable in the extreme. He wonders how long it will take for Jesse to ride it out on his own, wonders if he’ll have to intervene at some point, when Jesse thankfully fills the awkward silence.

“Please,” Jesse forces out, “Just. Check. On. Him.” The words come out in fits and starts, his breath gone ragged by the time he’s done. 

“Alright, alright,” Hank capitulates, anxious to get past Jesse’s crying jag. “Just calm down,” he grumbles, as though Jesse could simply shut off such an immense amount of emotion on command. Hank knows he’s being harsh and unfair. He doesn’t truly mean to be, but damn if this isn’t unchartered territory for Hank. “It’s okay,” he revises. “Just breathe.” 

Finally, after a few moments and a few almost imperceptible whimpers, Jesse seems to have quieted for the most part. His breathing’s off, still coming in uneven gasps, but it’s slowing, and he wipes his hand across his eye, smearing the mess of tears over his face. “ _Fuck_ ,” he bites out, his voice thick with congestion and shame. He laughs miserably and sniffles, eyes turned up to the ceiling. “I’m pathetic.”

“You’re fine,” Hank assures him. 

“Yeah,” Jesse barks out, sounding wholly unconvinced.

“So,” Hank says softly, loath to appear callous by way of switching subjects, but anxious to segue to slightly less delicate territory, at least until the kid can get ahold of himself. “You mentioned Lydia.”

The kid’s eyes glaze over for a moment, and Hank cringes, knowing he’s just shoved Jesse back into an equally touchy, if not slightly less impassioned place. He swears to himself that he’ll let Jesse pour his heart out later if it helps; whatever it takes to get in, get his information and then wipe out any evidence of himself amongst the smattering of atrocities desecrating Jesse’s mind.

Jesse blinks and clears his throat. “Yeah, Lydia Quayle or something. I think she might have two last names, you know? Like, with a hyphen?”

“Lydia Rodarte-Quayle,” Hank affirms, and Jesse looks surprised and a little disappointed to find that Hank already knows her name.

“That’s it. Anyway, Todd Alquist, the one I think I told you about before, you know, on the tape. The guy who…” Jesse motions vaguely, but Hank gleans what the kid clearly doesn’t want to put into words.

“The one responsible for Drew Sharpe,” Hank supplies cautiously, and Jesse nods.

“He made a deal with her. I cooked, and she would sell it all to Germany or someplace like that. They never told me any of the details, and I might have forgotten some things they did tell me, but I know he really liked her. Like, _liked her_ , liked her.”

Hank’s gratified to find his suspicions were accurate, but he knows he’s nearing dangerious boundaries, and he chooses his next words carefully. “Did she ever come out to … the lab?”

Jesse shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Wait…” his eyes scan the blanket spread over him, as though his memories might actually appear in chronicles there before him. He absently scratches his temple, inadvertently opening the edge of a wound that’s been stitched there but he doesn’t even seem to realize it, lost in concentration as he is. “Yeah, she did, actually. At least once. Todd said she came to see him there. Said she wanted him to bring the purity up and make the shit blue. I couldn’t tell you when that was—I’ve kind of been losing track of time. I think it was in the beginning. Whenever that was…” He trails off, and Hank realizes with a clench to his gut that Jesse probably doesn’t even know exactly how long he’s been gone. It’s a conversation he hopes they can avoid for awhile. 

Jesse heaves a huge yawn then, and Hank figures he only has so much time before the kid conks out on him again, utterly drained as he looks. His milky pallor stands out in stark contrast to his dark hair and beard—both thankfully clean now—but for the bright pink flush smudged high across his cheekbones.

“Jesse,” Hank starts, aiming for gentle but quick, like pulling off a band-aid. “I know shit went south before, but I promise, you can trust me. Tell me who this Brock Cantillo is, give me something to work with, and I’ll check up on him, just like you asked.”

Thankfully, the kid looks too tired to cry anymore.

“My girlfriend, Andrea,” the kid starts hesitantly. “I met her in NA. She was his mom… until they killed her.” Jesse’s eyes cut away from Hank’s as his breathing speeds up, his composure tenuous once again. “He’s only seven years old,” Jesse laments, “no mom, no dad. And that Todd fuck threatened to …” Jesse’s eyes cut back to Hank, glossy, imploring Hank to guess at what he chooses to leave unspoken. “I never should have tried to escape.”

Apparently, Jesse still has a few tears left to shed, and they roll over his temples, mixing with the bit of blood trickling from the re-opened wound. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Hank placates. “That’s enough, I get the picture. No need to upset yourself any further. I’ll make sure that he’s safe.” 

Jesse nods. “Thanks.” His voice comes out as little more than a croak. 

The solemnity in the kid’s voice whenever he speaks of Drew Sharpe or Brock Cantillo, and the way he skirts around the details of the violence unleashed against them tells Hank volumes about Jesse’s surprisingly acute sensitivity for children. And those monsters had used that against him in the most unspeakable way. _Christ_. 

Hank hadn’t deliberately riled the kid up, but he let him get overwrought, nonetheless. Now he’s worn to nothing, and Hank will be lucky if the nurses don’t catch on and ban him from coming in again. Like Hank had surmised, though, Jesse’s not far off from sleep, heavy-lidded, as he gazes out the window. He murmurs something that Hank doesn’t quite catch hold of, but the somnolent quality to his whispered voice suggests Hank need not answer; that Jesse’s even closer to his dreams than he’d thought previously.

Hank finds a clean cloth in the cabinet under the countertop and wets it down at the tap. He dabs at Jesse’s blood-streaked temple, wipes his tear-stained face and belatedly hopes Jesse hasn’t contracted any communicable diseases, though he feels bad for thinking it. The kid’s still noticeably feverish, and Hank says as much to the nurse when she comes in for her rounds. 

“It’s the infection.” She affirms as she reads the numbers on the monitors, recording them in Jesse’s chart. She purses her lips thoughtfully. “I think we might need to try another antibiotic.” 

Hank excuses himself, thankful for the nurse’s presence, and flips his phone open as he makes his way out of the ICU. 

“Gomez,” Steve answers.

“Hey, it’s me. I just talked to the kid. He seems to think this Lydia broad was at that compound at least once.”

“I was just about to call—I’m two steps ahead of you. There was a coffee mug in one of the rooms, with lipstick on the rim. I’m just waiting for the lab to confirm the DNA is hers.”

“Thanks, man. Give me a call when you know.”

“You got it.”

Hank snaps his phone closed, his palms slick with sweat, and heads down to the cafeteria. 

This has always been his favorite part of a case. That moment when the leads start popping up, the story starts to click into place, the excitement building like he’s at the start of a drag race, eyeing the competitor in his peripheral vision. Except this time, it’s personal, as much as he tries to keep an objective frame of mind. He can’t help an almost savage desire to kill Walt even beyond the bounds of physical death—to kill his reputation, the legend that was Heisenberg. Conversely, and to Hank’s own surprise, he can’t deny a foreign and unwanted urge to protect Jesse from any more of the fallout.

The waiting is always the hardest part.

He calls Marie, more as a distraction than for any real need to check in. She gives him a rundown of her day so far: pedicures with Skyler while Junior watched Holly, then the four of them had dined at Garduño’s for lunch. He fills her in on the generalities of his day thus far; the materialization of a new lead, the possibility of DNA evidence. Of course, he doesn’t give her details—she doesn’t even know about Pinkman at this point—but she seems satisfied, nonetheless. She tells him they’re making lasagna, asks if he will be home for dinner. 

As tempting as it sounds, he’d rather have Lydia on a proverbial platter instead.

The hospital seems to have started brewing better coffee lately, which probably isn’t good thing. Hank’s already two and a half cups in, and he can feel the jitters setting in. He worries briefly about his blood pressure and just as quickly puts it out of his mind. 

He’s about to check back in on Pinkman, to see if he’s slept long enough to tolerate another round of questioning, when his phone trills in his pocket.

“Schrader?”

“We got a match,” Steve confirms over the other end of the phone. 

“ _Uuuuungh!_ ” Hank grunts, conveying his fist pump over the line. 

“You ready to take a little drive out to Madrigal?” Steve asks.

“Damn straight, I am. And hey, I have another little project for you. I’ll tell you about it in the car. See you in a few.”

* * *

There are more fine lines around Lydia’s mouth and eyes than Hank remembers there being last time he’d been here. It’s possible he hadn’t noticed them before, but he’s more inclined to believe that the stress of living on lies and corruption has just caught up with her. 

“Agent Schrader, Agent Gomez,” Lydia greets them. “What may I do for you?” She’s obviously playing it cool today, in opposition to her eager-to-please act from last time. She methodically squeezes a tea bag against the side of her mug with a spoon, lifting it out and placing it onto the saucer with trembling fingers. Her shoes match today, but overall, Hank notices, she looks more disheveled. 

“We want to talk to you about your partner.” Steve puts it out there, matter of fact, and lets it hang in the air, leaning all the way back into his chair to send the message that they have all the time in the world, and aren’t going anywhere until they hear something they like. 

Lydia busies herself, tilting a packet of Stevia into her mug, avoiding their eyes. “Partner? I’m not sure which partner you’re referring to. Madrigal has lots of partners.”

“Let’s cut the crap, Lydia.” Hank leans forward, all too willing to play the bad cop to Steve’s genial good cop role. “I’m sure you’ve seen the news. We know all about that giant lab there at that compound. You know, the one with all the bodies lying around?” 

Her eyes cut up at him, giving nothing away. “And what does any of that have to do with me, I wonder?” Lydia keeps the tremor Hank knows she must be fighting out of her voice, casually smoothing the little fly-away hairs near her face. 

“Well, it’s funny you should ask,” Steve answers, all chummy and syrupy-sweet. “See, we found some of your DNA there at that lab. We can put you there at the scene. I’m sure there’s something you can tell us about all those corpses.”

“You can help us,” Hank adds, leveling a steely gaze at Lydia. “You can tell us what you know, and we can cut you a deal. Help alleviate this mess you’ve made for yourself. Maybe you’ll only have to look for another job and do some community service. You know, easy-peasy trash pickup for the nice lady who helped bring in a meth-peddling murderer.” Hank reaches across her desk to pluck up a framed picture of Lydia with little girl of about five in her lap. He turns the photo toward her. “Maybe we just slap a pretty little ankle bracelet on you, and you can take some extended time off to be with your daughter; spend a little quality time at home.”

Hank can almost see the nervous energy thrumming out of her, through her gratuitous reordering of her already meticulous desk, her eyes skittering around before hesitantly meeting Hank’s own. “I assure you—”

“Or,” Hank cuts her off, letting a little menace drip from his voice as he places the framed photo back and narrows his eyes at her. “You can go down with this Alquist guy. Drug manufacturing, involvement in that train heist … accessory after the fact in the murder of Drew Sharpe … I’m sure we can make something stick.”

Lydia composes herself, sitting up to her full height, a calm confidence suddenly settling over her like she’s rehearsed this a million times. “With all those surveillance cameras, I’m sure you already know what happened and who’s responsible in that shooting. And most importantly, I’m sure you already know that I wasn’t anywhere around when it happened. I’ve only been there once, on my own personal business, which was some time ago, and I can’t imagine whatever trace of me you’ve found there is enough to charge me as an accessory to _anything_ , let alone murder.”

Hank usually considers himself highly perceptive; good at reading people. It’s a necessary skill in this line of work, and very few people surprise him. 

Lydia is one of them. 

“Now.” Lydia stands from her desk, straightening her blazer and giving Hank a glare of her own. Am I under arrest, or can I get back to work?”

* * *

“God Dammit!” Hank pounds the steering wheel with the heel of his palm once they’re back in the car. 

Steve lets loose a long-suffering sigh in agreement. “I know I said before that the bitch has balls, but… I did _not_ expect that.”

“Cunt’s smarter than I gave her credit for. _Fuck!_ ” Hank gives the steering wheel a final slam for good measure, as his phone starts ringing from his pocket.

“Schrader,” Hank answers. “Yeah. _Yeah_. Yeah?”

Steve raises his eyebrows in question, and Hank lets him see the excitement he can feel growing on his face in answer.

“Thanks, man … alright.” Hank claps his phone shut. “That Kandy-ass piece of shit has a RAP sheet a mile long and a mug shot that matches the description of our visitor on the video.”

Steve chuckles deviously. “Alright, let’s go get him.”


	5. Retrograde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But it seemed that Walt did actually care for Jesse, at times. He had scooped the kid out of the dregs of a crack house and tucked him into one of the best rehab facilities in New Mexico. He’d taught him his coveted Blue Sky recipe, and he’d visited Jesse in the hospital both after his altercation with Tuco Salamanca, and even, Hank cringes, after Hank had put Jesse there himself. Hank could detect sincere affection for Jesse in Walt’s voice over the few voice messages he’d heard, which stood at stark odds with the cruelty he’d inflicted on the kid as often as not. But to an emotionally needy and affection-starved kid like Jesse, Walt’s brand of intermittent fatherly praise was enough to keep Jesse heeled at Walt’s knee. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per usual, thank you to the lovely Porkchop_Sandwiches for the beta, and for letting me bounce ideas around. Any residual mistakes are inherently mine.
> 
> I'm still not a medical expert, nor do I have any expansive knowledge of the law or police procedures, so I hope that my brief research has sufficiently enabled me to write a fairly-believable story.
> 
> Constructive Criticism is welcome, however, please be respectful.
> 
> This is my first multi-chapter fic. I hope you enjoy it.

**Chapter Five: _Retrograde_**

“DEA, open up, we have a warrant,” Hank shouts, pounding on the metal screen for the third time. 

Casey finally opens the heavy door behind it, his hands spreading in supplication as Hank reaches to his side and makes a point of flashing his holstered pistol.

“Hey man, Neil’s not here,” Casey insists, but Hank’s heard this song and dance so many times that he doesn’t hesitate to push his way inside and shove Casey up against the wall to frisk him for weapons. “Like I said before. He’s sick.”

“No one’s going to contradict you, there.” Hank sneers. “Now, show me to his office.”

Hank and Steve follow Casey through a beer-stained lounge that smells of sweat and grease, maneuvering around stacks of file boxes, some bulging with paper, others laden with miscellaneous metal scraps of varying cleanliness. “This place is a pig sty,” Hank scoffs. “How do you guys do business in this mess?”

Casey ignores Hank’s questions, leading them to a semi-enclosed room housing a metal desk and a shredded office chair. “Well, this is it. No Neil. You satisfied now?” Casey scowls at Hank, arms folded across his chest.

Steve draws his pistol and goes to search the rest of the building, reappearing a few seconds later, shaking his head as he returns his gun to his holster. “He’s not here,” he affirms as Casey twists his lips into a mocking smile.

The place defines the word dismal. Void of any natural light and substituted artificially with only a few working bulbs in the chilliest shade of white, the shadows are long, and Hank can’t help but wonder what might be crawling around in their depths. 

Ignoring Casey’s impatient shifting, Hank studies the room a moment longer, letting his gaze wander over the numerous notes and paperwork taped to the wall next to the desk. An ancient file cabinet stands to the right and taped to its side is a photo of a man with dark hair and puffy cheeks, a bullet-riddled paper target in hand, the center blown completely open. It’s definitely the guy from the video. Hank peels it off and turns it toward Casey. “This your buddy, Neil?”

Casey nods, eyes flicking back and forth between Hank and Steve. “Yeah, but look, I don’t know what any of this is about.”

“He doesn’t know what this is about,” Steve mocks, affecting a falsetto voice. 

“Good. Then I guess he won’t have to worry when—" Hank breaks off when something catches his eye. A yellow paper—a carbon copy—on the top of one of the various stacks of paperwork covering the desk. The font of the header stands out to him, and he stares in disbelief.

It’s an invoice for two barrels of methylamine, stamped delivered and paid full in cash, dating back ten days ago, dispatched by none other than Lydia Rodarte-Quayle, and signed for by one Casey McMullin on behalf of Kandy Welding, Co.

“Casey, what’s your last name again?” Hank asks casually.

“McMullin,” Casey snaps. “Why?” 

“Casey McMullin,” Hank holds up the yellow paper. “You have the right to remain silent.”

* * *

“Settle in. Get comfy.” Hank guides Casey down into a metal seat in interrogation room #2. “I’m going after your boss, now. Am I going to find him at his home?”

Hank gives Steve a sidelong look as they wait for an answer, but Casey says nothing, his glare steeped with contempt.

“You know,” Hank apprises, “When we find him, which we will, he’ll be begging to strike a deal. With his list of priors, and the heavy shit he’s gotten himself into, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he drags everyone around him down to keep his own head above water. In fact, it’s inevitable. If I were you, I’d be thinking really hard about your loyalty to that piece of shit, and whether it’s worth your own ass.”

Hank turns to leave, and Casey’s voice breaks the silence. “He’s at my place.”

“See,” Steve coos. “That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

“All this shit about him being out sick and he was at your place the entire time?” Hank puffs a laugh of disbelief and turns to Steve. “You wanna babysit this one, see what else you can get out of him?”

“Sure thing. We’re gonna get nice and chummy,” Steve assures him, pulling up a seat across from Casey.

“Don’t get _too_ chummy. Save some for the guys in the tank.” Hank cackles and heads out the door to collect Neil Kandy.

* * *

“Come on, that’s a stretch. A lot of companies use methylamine. It’s part of our cleaning solvent, and we’ve been using it for years. It’s completely legal. Look it up.” Neil folds his arms. “Is that all you’ve got, Sherlock?” For all of Casey’s indignation and fire, Neil’s been nothing but cool and collected to this point.

“Legal for you to purchase for your own business purposes, yeah. But I’m sure you know that it’s an illegal substance to transfer without a permit. And I’d bet my left nut that when we go digging, we’re going to find that at least one of those barrels in that meth lab matches the serial number to one of your invoices. What are you going to tell me then, genius?” Hank retorts, folding his arms to mirror Neil’s.

Neil looks away momentarily, breathes out a haughty laugh. “I think I’d tell you to find something better to do. But let me know how that works out for you. Now, are we done talking about trivial shit like invoices and serial numbers? Because I don’t think you have a God damn thing on me, and you’ve wasted enough of my time already. There’s a beer in a strip joint calling my name, so unless you can devise some legitimate reason out of thin air to keep me here, I’d rather just get the fuck on my way.”

“Nah. I don’t think so.” Hank shakes his head, leaning forward in his seat. “The name Jesse Pinkman ring any bells?” Hank lets the weight of his question fill the space between them, locks eyes with Neil, and Hank finally catches a glimmer of fear there. “Yeah,” Hank growls, “I know all about your little rat trap. And I’ve got video of you in the same frame with him, dangling off your buddy’s shoulder after you guys did God knows what to him.” 

Neil’s complexion pales a few degrees at that, and he swallows hard, but his eyes remain cold, trained steadily on Hank.

“From where I’m sitting,” Hank continues, “the methylamine is the very least of your problems. See, I’m thinking that on top of manufacturing, you’re looking at charges of, what, Gomie? Kidnapping? Torture? My guess is that you’re looking at a combined sentence of about 35, 40 years, at least. You’ll be lucky if you serve half.”

Steve purses his lips, eyebrows raised as he nods in appraisal. “I’d have a mind to add attempted murder in there, too, if I were the DA. Kid was near death when we found him, and he’s still not quite out of the woods. It’ll be interesting to see what he says about this whole incident, when he can stay awake long enough to disclose it.

“You’re done.” Hank leans back in his seat then, content to relax as Neil scrubs his hands over his face.

“I want a lawyer,” Neil asserts. 

“That’s it, lawyer up. You’ll need it.” Hank spits, preparing to lay his grand finale on thick. “Now, let me tell you how this is going to go. You’re going to get your lawyer and you’re going to make a plea deal. You’re going to tell us everything we need to know about Todd Alquist and Lydia Rodarte-Quayle. And when you curl up on your little cum-stained bunk tonight, with the sounds of clanging bars and catcalls in your ears, you’re going to pray to God that Jesse Pinkman doesn’t die.”

* * *

“I think you’re losing your touch,” Steve mocks as they leave the station. 

“What? That was the performance of a lifetime,” Hank retorts. “You wanna grab an early dinner while we wait? I’m hankering for Guarduño’s.”

“Twist my arm,” Steve agrees. “I’m starving.”

“So, did you get anything else out of McMullin earlier?”

“Not a whole lot,” Steve admits. “He knows about the meth operation; he’s complicit in the trade of methylamine for cash, but I don’t think his involvement goes much further. I don’t think he knew anything about the distribution. Or Pinkman.”

* * *

“Damn, I ate too much,” Steve says as they climb into Hank’s car. 

“I’d hate to be you tomorrow,” Hank chuckles. “You’re gonna shit fire.”

“Nope. My ass is fire retardant,” Steve counters, self-assured. 

“That must be a beaner trait,” Hank razzes.

“Hey, you ask Skyler about dinner, Saturday? Blanca’s on my ass for an answer.”

“Shit,” Hank frowns momentarily. “I almost forgot.” He digs one-handed in his pocket for his phone as he drives, flips it open and then fumbles it, dropping it between the seat and the console. “ _Dammit_ ,” he grumbles, struggling to shove his forearm farther into the crevice to reach it, when Steve leans forward in his seat to increase the volume of the radio from a dull, background thrum to a more intelligible level.

“ _What the_ …” Steve mutters, turning to Hank as though he can’t believe his own ears.

_…the whereabouts of Jesse Pinkman, 25, of Albuquerque, had been unknown for the last six months. Anita Alvarez, neighbor to Adam and Diane Pinkman—Jesse Pinkman’s father and mother—says she spoke to deputies the night before last, when they knocked at the couple’s door. She says Albuquerque police were looking for family to notify of his rescue. Alvarez has been house-sitting for Mr. and Mrs. Pinkman while they have been out of the country. The family have not made any official comments at this time. Jesse Pinkman remains in police custody at Presbyterian Hospital, where he is listed in serious condition. More news on the hour…_

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Steve says, looking dumbfounded as he turns the radio back down. 

“Get security on Pinkman’s room, now,” Hank instructs, flipping a u-turn and heading for the hospital.

* * *

From the moment they enter the doors of the ICU, Hank knows something’s wrong. There’s too much commotion, and the amount of medical staff passing in and out of Pinkman’s room sets him running off towards it.

“Sir, you can’t be in here,” a nurse snaps as he enters. 

“What’s happening,” Hank demands, eyes searching for a glimpse of the kid between scrub-suited backs. No one answers him though, preoccupied as they are, bustling around the room with too much intensity for Hank’s liking. 

_“…anaphylaxis…_ ”

_“Pulse rate 120, BP 60 over 40 and dropping, Oxygen 82%”_

_“Push .3 mg epinephrine,”_

_“…another bag of saline,”_

_“…sedation…need to intubate, get him out of here,”_

A pair of insistent hands steers him towards the door, and then he’s out in the hallway, mind racing. 

“ _No_ , I need to know if you’ve seen anyone go into that room that you don’t know—doctors, nurses, _anyone_ that you don’t recognize …” Steve sounds almost as flustered as Hank feels, speaking to a gray-haired man who might be the hospital’s chief of staff. 

“I guarantee you,” the man tells Steve, “I know each of the staff members in there now personally, and no one else has been in there since your deputy showed up. I can take you upstairs and show you the footage from the security cameras, if that helps.”

Hank takes a few deep breaths and shakes out his hands, feeling uncomfortable with his lack of control over the situation.

He turns toward the glass partition at the side of the door, peering into Jesse’s room. His hand is all he can see of the kid—motionless on the bedding, palm upturned, fingers curled as though wordlessly begging for mercy. 

Hank hears an echo of Jesse’s voice from earlier say “ _I’m_ _alive_ ,” and he swallows around the lump in his throat.

* * *

Hank sits slumped in the chair at Jesse’s bedside, staring off at the wall, the rhythmic sounds of the monitor and ventilator lulling him into a daze. Memories of Walt come to him; of holidays shared as a family, tipping back a few beers while their wives prepared indulgent meals, sharply juxtaposed to the past few weeks of trading threats and deception. 

He’s aware that there will be consequences at some point, in exchange for continually suppressing the emotional weight he’s borne by caring for two children, whose father he had simultaneously hunted, and fretting all the while about losing control over his case if he were to break down from another anxiety attack. This isn’t a usual case, a short case, a straight-forward case, and least of all, it’s not a case that he can shut off at night, and he catches himself over-thinking things too much. There are high prices for walking the path he’s chosen. His sanity, health and emotional well-being all hanging in the balance, along with the unintentional collateral damage to his family.

He’d briefly questioned his own love for his niece and nephew after he’d uncovered the truth about Walt, though he’d never tell another soul. He’d examined his thoughts and feelings as objectively as possible, and by the grace of God, he’d felt the familiar tenderness pulling in his chest, as Junior and Holly’s sweet faces and innocent laughs had filled his mind, and guilt had replaced any doubt of his love for them. Thankfully, his concern over Walt forever tainting Hank’s affection for the kids that he’d cared for and protected as fiercely as any children he would ever father himself had been short-lived. 

Considering that Hank and Marie had made a conscious decision to never have children of their own, Hank’s not sure whether it would be considered divine intervention, irony, or both that they will most likely take full, or at least partial custody of Walt’s children, with consideration to the fact that Skyler’s future is still dangling like a mouse by its tail to be bandied about at the whim of the lawyers. 

Just one year ago, things had been so different. It feels like a lifetime ago now; when Walt had first been diagnosed. The man he’d always known as a lovable, passive, law-abiding pushover, had been even further reduced to a thinner, older version of himself, struggling to make ends meet, the remnants of his pride and dignity driving him away from accepting help of any kind from anyone else. 

That is, with exception, to Jesse Pinkman.

Elliott and Gretchen had begged Walt to take their money, as much to allay their own guilt over profiting from Walt’s idea as to help the friend they grew to pity. And though Hank could understand Walt’s distaste for accepting charity, he’d also felt Skyler’s shock and grief in response to Walt’s refusal of it as if it were his own, despite how nonchalant he’d outwardly reacted to the news. 

Instead of leaning on his family or friends, Walt had taken to fighting against his weakening body and ambiguous fate to provide on his own. And so, Hank had learned, after watching Jesse’s grueling confession tape, Walt had found Jesse in self-imposed trouble and had blackmailed him into helping Walt to those ends.

Hank sighs and shifts in his seat, stealing a glance at Jesse. 

The kid had been troubled before Walt, no doubt. Wayward and rebellious, he’d had a habit of getting up to mischief and landing himself in the kind of trouble that a firm parental hand could have prevented if it had been present a handful of years before. Hank doubts that Jesse ever would have scratched the surface of the darker underworld of drugs on his own. Or if he had, Hank thinks the smallest glimpse of it would have been enough to turn him around, running in the opposite direction. Because for all of Jesse’s swagger, there was twice as much vulnerability beneath it. And Walt had sniffed it out a mile away. 

Like magnets, both with repelling and attracting poles, the two had either fought for or against one another to the end. Walt, nearing the end of his life, had pulled Jesse in, and painfully young and naïve as Jesse was, he hadn’t the slightest inclination of how deep of a hole he’d stumbled into, until he was in much too deep to dig his way out. 

Listening to everything that Jesse had conceded to on that tape while he emotionally bled out, Hank had grasped the great liberties Walt had taken with disgust. Not so much on Jesse’s behalf at the time, but with sheer revulsion toward his brother in-law. Despite Jesse’s righteous anger, Hank was sure he was wholly unaware of the degree to which his grief suffused his story: His face twisted in pain as he unearthed the stories of the dead and groveled over his own guilt, his shoulders slumped low with unfathomable burden as he relayed his own relevant faults and failures in a tone so eerily akin to Walt’s, it was like the kid had been channeling him.

But it seemed that Walt did actually care for Jesse, at times. He had scooped the kid out of the dregs of a crack house and tucked him into one of the best rehab facilities in New Mexico. He’d taught him his coveted Blue Sky recipe, and he’d visited Jesse in the hospital both after his altercation with Tuco Salamanca, and even, Hank cringes, after Hank had put Jesse there himself. Hank could detect sincere affection for Jesse in Walt’s voice over the few voice messages he’d heard, which stood at stark odds with the cruelty he’d inflicted on the kid as often as not. But to an emotionally needy and affection-starved kid like Jesse, Walt’s brand of intermittent fatherly praise was enough to keep Jesse heeled at Walt’s knee. 

There’s a wealth of anger to feast on in Hank’s mind, but there’s a fresh appearance of burden there now, too. Sure, there had been some to start—not that he’d ever considered Junior or Holly a burden, but the upheaval of their lives, the worry on everyone’s account, was a strain felt by the entire family. And now he can’t help but feel at least somewhat responsible for the last of Walt’s children now thrust upon him, even if he comes in the form of a twenty-something, drug-addicted criminal of a surrogate son. But here he is, battered beyond recognition and deprived of any family to care for him; the one person who’d quasi-championed for him dead, having left him to rot in a hole.

There’s a knock at the door, and Steve steps in tentatively. “How is he?” He hovers in the doorway and his eyes search Hank’s face briefly before sliding sideways toward Jesse, where he lies inert, still deeply medicated. 

“Better.” Hank slips his finger under the bright red band around Jesse’s wrist for Steve to see, the word ‘ERYTHROMYCIN’ typed out in large letters. “It was an allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics. That’s all.”

“ _All_?” Steve raises his eyebrows at Hank.

Hank shakes his head. “I thought for sure that Alquist had something to do with this. The news … and then when we showed up…”

“Hey, I can’t say the same thing didn’t occur to me,” Steve assures him in earnest, sighing with obvious relief.

“Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction on my part to put security on him. I don’t know. I’m ridiculously tired.” 

“Hey, you don’t have to justify yourself to me.”

Hank nods. “Thanks, man. Go ahead and call off security. The less guys we have collecting payroll on this case, the better.”

“You got it. I’ll see you at the station in the morning,” Steve says. “I’m so tired, I feel like I could sleep for a week. You should get some rest, too.”

“Will do,” Hank assures him.

Hank checks his watch as the door clicks shut. It’s nearly 9pm. He wants so badly to go home and climb into bed, but he scoots down into the chair a little deeper to rest his head against the wall and closes his eyes instead, averse to the thought of Jesse waking alone. When he drifts off, he dreams of Marie and the kids.

When he surfaces an hour and a half or so later, his eyes are dry and his upper back feels like it’s been melded to the chair. He stands up and stretches, getting a satisfying pop in return.

He considers going for a cup of coffee, and blinks in surprise when he finds that Jesse’s awake, if only just barely. 

“Hey, kiddo, how are you doing,” Hank asks, then belatedly remembers that the kid can’t speak. 

Jesse suddenly seems to have the same realization, grabbing for the ventilator tube, and Hank stops him, gathering Jesse’s hands in his own. “ _Nononono_ , shhh. You’re okay.” Jesse’s eyes squeeze shut as he gags. “Don’t fight it. Just try to breathe with it,” Hank soothes, letting Jesse’s hands go when he finally settles. “There you go. You had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic, but you’re going to be fine,” Hank assures him. It’s true as far as recovery from this particular episode goes, but Hank can’t help but wonder how much more physical, mental and emotional care Jesse will need until a promise like that could even come close to being fulfilled. 

Hank presses the call button for the nurse, attempting to keep Jesse distracted and calm. 

“You know, back when I used to work in APD, I would man the emergency lines from time to time. We would take turns doing rounds when we were short on staff, and, well, this one time, I got this call. I couldn’t really understand what the guy was saying at first, you know? It was all muffled. I kept saying, ‘ _911, what’s your emergency, sir, can you hear me’_ , and routine stuff like that. But after a minute, I noticed the guy couldn’t hear me either. Well, finally, I started to make out what the guy was saying, and I realized he was telling his buddy that he’d just robbed some house and was telling him how much money and jewelry he’d taken. And then, _get this_ , the guy admitted that it was his own mother’s place that he’d hit. Well, we traced the call and sent a squad car down there to pick him up, and he had no idea what was going on. As it turned out, he had accidentally butt-dialed the police at the exact moment he’d decided to brag about his crime, in complete detail, no less. He made his own case for the prosecution short and sweet. Talk about the world’s dumbest criminal.”

Hank chuffs a laugh at the memory, and Jesse’s mouth twitches slightly under the tape that’s securing the tube. Hank can’t help but feel grateful for even that miniscule amount of levity, however brief.

“Anyway, they’re going to come in and take that tube out shortly, okay?” Jesse nods infinitesimally, as much as he’s able. “Okay,” Hank says. “I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow. And just to give you a heads up…” Hank struggles to force out the words. “As soon as you’re able, we’re going to have to talk. I mean _really_ talk. Details.”

Jesse’s eyebrows draw together, a moment’s trepidation washing over his eyes, followed by a sort of dejected acceptance, replacing the dullness of medicated slumber, and Hank feels something akin to a punch to his chest. 

“Look, kid, it’s prerequisite. It just comes with the territory.” Hank hates having to dispel that small but hard-won notion of comfort he’s only just established—for taking that semblance of amity he’d only just begun to construct and almost immediately dashing it to pieces. 

But it’s true: they do need to talk. Hank doesn’t want to run the kid through the mill just for kicks. It’s his job. They need the kid’s testimony. And Hank knows that if it’s not him asking, it will just be someone else. Maybe that would be a good thing, Hank contemplates for a moment. Someone else might have a gentler approach, more patience. But if Hank’s honest with himself, he knows that his brusqueness is really just his own defense; his need to reserve some distance for his own sake. He’s not looking forward to hearing the horror story he knows is in store, nor does he want to tear Jesse apart any further to get to it, however much he wants to close this case. Most of all, he’s reluctant to give in to the protective surge of anger on Jesse’s behalf. And with that, he realizes that perhaps he’s the best person for this job, after all.

Hank’s pulled from his thoughts at the tap of fingers at his forearm, and Hank wonders just how much emotion had been playing out on his own face. Jesse pats his forearm clumsily, gives him a weak thumbs up, a look of weary determination and assurance in the set of his brow. Hank blows out a steady breath. It’s a futile attempt to expel the guilt that grips at his throat.

The night shift nurse comes in, then, and he gives the back of Jesse’s hand a gentle pat in return. “Try and get some more sleep,” he implores before he reaches into his pocket for his keys and heads home.


	6. Reanimate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dejection starts to settle in yet again, threatening to spread over him, as final as a death shroud. It’s only sheer thoroughness that urges Hank to check the other side of the building anyway, averse to leaving anything on the table, but there’s nothing to see. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another big thank you to the lovely Porkchop_Sandwiches for the beta. Any residual mistakes are inherently mine.
> 
> I'm not a medical expert, nor do I have any expansive knowledge of the law or police procedures, so I hope that my brief research has sufficiently enabled me to write a fairly-believable story.
> 
> Constructive Criticism is welcome, however, please be respectful.
> 
> This is my first multi-chapter fic. I hope you enjoy it!

**Chapter Six: _Reanimate_ **

Steve and most of the team are already at the station by the time Hank shuffles in with two dozen donuts and a traveler box of coffee. 

“For those who started early so I could catch a few more Z’s. Thanks, guys. And lady,” Hank amends, raising his coffee-laden hand in the direction of his secretary, Janice. “So,” he addresses his team as they crowd around him, attacking the refreshments. “Bring me up to speed.”

“Well,” Steve begins, pouring two cups of coffee and handing one off to Hank. “Like you figured, a few of those barrels at the compound matched up to invoices in Kandy’s office. His lawyer’s due here in about a half an hour, so I figure our little jailbird’s getting ready to start singing a pretty little tune.” 

Hank hums his approval as he grabs a doughnut and bites into it. “What about those files? You find anything else that ties Lydia to the lab?” 

“Nada.” Steve pops a donut hole into his mouth and brushes the crumbs from his hands. 

“Shit,” Hank says around a mouthful of pastry. “Well, between those barrels and invoices, the lab, and Kandy’s and Pinkman’s testimony, we should have enough evidence to put her away until she’s older than Methuselah.”

“I’m thinking positively,” Steve tells Hank, picking up a case folder and leaning back against the desk to crack it open. 

“Good. Do that,” Hank agrees, sipping his coffee. “And while you’re at it, send up a prayer for a lead on Alquist. Are there any patron saints designated for that?”

“I think that’s Saint Michael’s department,” Steve says thoughtfully.

“No kidding?” Hank laughs. “Well, pray to him, then, would ya?”

The sound of heels clacking against the tiled floors draws both men’s attention, and Steve snaps the folder closed again. “Here we go.” 

* * *

“Wait a minute,” Hank interrupts, scribbling his pen on his notepad to get the ink flowing. “Let me get this straight. Burgermeister Meisterburger. Is that right?” He holds the paper up to Neil.

“Yeah, that’s it.” Neil averts his eyes, finding the gray interior paint inordinately interesting while Hank continues to jot a few more notes. With nowhere but Hank’s persistent mug and the concrete wall to face, Neil’s exactly where Hank wants him: with a plea deal dangling in exchange for cooperation and testimony, and Kandy spilling his guts for a shortened stretch in the penitentiary and a shot at probation in the not-too-distant future. “It’s a company in Germany,” he adds. “Apparently some guy named Herzog, the guy who owns Madrigal, also owns this budding German conglomerate. It was one of Schuler’s pet projects till he bit it.”

“And how does this tie in with Lydia and the meth lab?” Hank taps his pen against his papers in anticipation.

Neil scoffs. “Other than the fact that she can pick up right where she left off and be closer to the Czech Republic, the biggest origin of her clientele, with almost unlimited financial resources and less restrictions than the U.S.? Look, Lydia’s smart. Organized. She knows the heat is on. And it just so happens that Schuler’s death left the perfect opening for her in Germany, and a hell of a front. Herzog thinks highly of her. She knows the business inside and out, speaks the language … you guys would have a hell of a time extraditing her. She’s a dual citizen.”

“And why would she tell you all of this, I wonder,” Hank feigns obtuseness. “Were you banging her? I mean, she’s a hot little number, I’d understand. Hell, I’d even have to congratulate you—you’re hardly a catch. But this just doesn’t seem like information that she’d casually impart to some middleman like you. Especially if she’s a smart as you say.”

Neil shakes his head with a sigh. “She didn’t tell me. Alquist did.”

“Oh, Alquist told you. I see.” Hank spurs Neil on. “They must be pretty close.”

“I’m sure he’d love to hear you say as much,” Neil snorts. “Guy’s as whipped as they come, and she wasn’t even putting out for his troubles, last I heard. I didn’t get the impression that she was the least bit interested in him, outside of what he could do for her, but Todd didn’t seem to glean that. He doesn’t have the best handle on social cues.”

Neil scratches his nails over his scruff, and Hank can tell he’s tired; his first night in the slammer obviously lending him little to no rest to alleviate the circles under his eyes _. Good_ , Hank thinks.

“So, you must be pretty close to Alquist, then, for him to share these kinds of things with you,” Hank prompts.

“ _Pfft_. I’d hardly say I’m _close_ to Todd Alquist.” Neil’s mouth turns down in revulsion. “I hung out with Kenny and Lester, so he was around. We’d talk, occasionally.”

“And when you’d talk. What would he tell you? What’s this guy’s story?” Hank leans in, resting his elbows on the table.

A flicker of mirthless humor passes over Neil’s face, his eyebrows quirking up for a moment even as he shakes his head in disbelief. “You tell me. To say that guy’s cryptic is an understatement.” Neil pauses and looks away as though he’s deciding whether or not to share another sentiment or not, but then he relents. “I really don’t know what makes that guy tick—and Lord help me, I don’t _want_ to know. But whatever it is … let’s just say the guy has a dark side. He comes across a few cents short of a nickel, but I think he’s actually smarter than people give him credit for. Lydia wouldn’t string him along to do her dirty work if he was that dim.” Neil leans back in his chair, shrugs his shoulders. “Other than that, I don’t really know much about him. I’d be surprised if anyone does. But I’ll tell you what I _do_ know. Where you find a Lydia, you’ll find a Todd.”

Just as Hank had presumed. 

A familiar feeling of restlessness has been growing steadily in Hank’s bones all morning; a relentless edginess prodding at Hank’s brain that starts around this stage of the game, and Neil’s words only prove to intensify the feeling. 

Hank knows better than to ignore it after all these years.

He gathers his notepad with a few hushed words to Steve and leaves him to finish up with Neil and his lawyer, bursting out of the door. “Connor,” he shouts, finding his agent out in the lounge, draining the last of the coffee from the traveler. “Get eyes on Lydia Rodarte-Quayle and prep a warrant for her arrest.”

* * *

Hank’s out of breath, striding toward the doors of Presbyterian Hospital as quickly as is respectable. In all honesty, he’s dreading the thought of scouring the kid’s mind and dredging up nightmares, but it’s not really down to what either Hank or Jesse wants at the moment, rather than the dire need to apprehend Lydia and Todd before they can abscond. 

He raises a hand in greeting as he passes the nurse at her station and she greets him quietly in return, immediately resuming her paperwork. His shoes squeak on the freshly polished floor as he heads to Jesse’s room and pushes open the door…

And he’s gone _._

All Hank can do for a moment is stand there blinking, hand bracing the door. The partially drained bags of fluid, the monitors, still running, and the rumpled sheets all suggest that Jesse should still be here. Hank checks the john but finds it empty. Even if the kid had been able to get up unaided for a piss, which Hank doubts he’s even physically capable of quite yet, he’d still have a needle taped into his arm at the least. At that realization, Hank follows the line of the IV, to where it drips onto the side of the bedding, almost obscured by a fold of the blanket, a few droplets of blood blossoming outward on the sheets beneath it. 

Hank’s chest heaves, shock hitting him several times like rapid-fire punches to his brain before he’s able to believe that his prior suspicion could have possibly occurred in reality, let alone _after_ he’d pulled security off of Jesse’s room. 

Hanks storms out of the room and interrogates the nurse at her station. “Was Jesse Pinkman moved?” She looks confused for a moment, and Hank pounds a fist on the countertop, causing her to jump. “Jesse Pinkman,” Hank demands urgently. “Did he check himself out?”

“No,” the nurse cries, flustered. She scans the paperwork in front of her and shakes her head at Hank, apparently at a loss. “ _No._ ”

“Get hospital security up here now,” he snarls, propelling himself back into Jesse’s room. He rips the sheer window covering aside and scans the parking lot below. There’s nothing out of the ordinary happening outside, no sign of Pinkman, but then movement in his periphery catches his attention: The black El Camino with the racing stripe from the CCTV at the compound, rounding the corner of the parking lot and pulling out onto the main drag.

Hank considers chasing after them for the briefest of moments but thinks better of it. Even if he bypassed the elevators and used the stairs, running the entirety of the way to his car, he’d never catch up in time, even if he didn’t have a limp and knew where they were headed. Better to get word to the units already on patrol.

He flips his phone open, pressing speed dial #2. 

“Gomie,” Hank barks as Steve answers, “I need you to get an APB out on Alquist, driving the El Camino from the CCTV, heading north on Oak Street from Presbytrian Hospital. He’s got Pinkman. Get over here ASAP.”

He barely registers Steve’s parting words when his eyes land on a clipboard wedged between the bedrail and the mattress. 

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Hank’s watching Steve inspect the room, hoping he’ll catch something that Hank’s missed.

No such luck.

“Hospital security is going through surveillance, but in the meantime, I think we should focus on this.” Hank hands the clipboard off to Steve, who begins to read through the sharp-pointed lettering, written in a shaky hand across lined pages. “I found that shoved against the side of the bed, there. Last night I told the kid that we were going to have a serious chat today. I don’t know if he was just getting warmed up, cataloging his thoughts and such, or if he had some kind of premonition, but there you are.” Hank motions at the clipboard, scrubbing his chin in thought. “He mentions a body. Alquist’s housekeeper, a woman named Sonia. Says Alquist strangled her and then dragged Pinkman over to his house to help him dispose of her. He gives a brief description of her and the location of her burial site. But here’s the real kicker: While he and Alquist were out in the desert digging her grave, Welker and the rest of his guys were out water skiing on Elephant Butte Lake. Kid mentions a Chaparral, a boat, then he stops.” 

Steve flips to the last page of Jesse’s testimony, where the writing suddenly skids off the page, the three last letters reading _Mag—._

“Do you think he was writing the name of the boat?” Steve asks, flipping through the pages once again.

“That was my thought.” Hank squints, glancing out the window. “I don’t remember any other vehicles or vessels registered under Welker’s or Alquist’s names, but I want to get out there now and check it out. Have Connor get down here to look at the hospital’s surveillance—I’m going to hit the head before we leave.”

* * *

On the two-hour drive south to Elephant Butte, the quiet tension in the car prevails over small talk and banter, the intermittent chatter over the police radio the only sound breaking the hum of the tires on the road. 

Connor calls twenty minutes into their trek, with an update on the surveillance video, and Hank switches on the speaker for Steve to listen in. 

“It was Alquist, without a doubt,” he informs them. “He came through ICU at 10:48am with what looked like a plastic grocery bag and entered Pinkman’s room. He passed right by the nurse at the station, and wasn’t questioned on the way in. There seemed to be something of an emergency or commotion in another room, and Alquist slipped right out pushing Pinkman in a wheelchair eight minutes later, dressed in civilian clothing, completely unnoticed. I have no idea if Alquist had anything to do with the distraction, but if he did, it didn’t seem apparent. Alquist was casual as you like, and to anyone else’s eyes, it looked completely inconspicuous—just a relative taking a patient home. I’ve updated the APB with relevant clothing descriptions.”

“Good. Now I need you to help me look into something else: a boat, specifically a Chaparral, with either NM or TX tags, most likely, docked or stored somewhere in the vicinity of Elephant Butte. I know it’s a shot in the dark here, but all I can give you to go on is that it might be registered to one of those Nazi fucks, or a friend or relative to one of them. The name of the vessel might be something along the lines of Maggie, Magnet, Magma… something starting with the letters M-A-G. Just see what you can find.”

Hank snaps his phone shut and stows it in his cupholder just as the updated APB posts over the police radio. 

_…Todd Alquist: 23 years old, five foot, ten inches, medium build, blond hair, green eyes, wearing a light-colored button-up shirt and dark pants. Jesse Pinkman: 25 years old, five foot, eight inches tall, slim build, light brown hair, blue eyes, dark long-sleeve shirt, dark pants. Alquist is considered armed and dangerous, Pinkman is in serious medical condition, in need of prescription medication._

They pull off along the I-25 somewhere in Socorro county for gas, and Steve heads for the men’s room, while Hank grabs a coffee. He pops the tab on the lid, watching the steam rise, and wracks his brain to recall some sort of connection—anything that might help them find what they’re looking for, but nothing materializes.

The sound of gravel crunching underfoot brings Hank out of his thoughts. The phone trills again as they climb into the car, and Hank answers on speaker. “Yeah, what’d you find out?” 

“That there’s a shitload of boats registered in New Mexico, not to mention Texas, and only slightly less of them are Chaparrals. Boat names don’t come up under the registration, so finding the right one is going to be hell without knowing the hull number or going down there personally to search boat docks or warehouses for it. Nothing turned up under any of our Nazi friends’ names, but I’ll start checking on their relatives and friends.”

“Okay.” Hank sighs heavily, refusing to feel dejected as he’s wont to do when cases start to go cold. He doesn’t want to think about what will happen to Jesse if that happens, so he pushes the thought away before it has time to form any further. “Hey, Connor, search under Neil Kandy and Casey McMullin, while you’re at it.”

“You got it, boss.”

* * *

By the time they make it to Elephant Butte, they’ve spoken to Connor one more time, but there’s still nothing to go on. They drive along the reservoir, periodically getting out to walk the lengths of the slips, checking the names of every boat docked along the water. At one point, they spot a fishing boat dubbed the Magda May, and their spirits lift until they check into it and find that it belongs to the mayor. 

That dejected feeling starts eating at Hank again, and this time, he gives in to it a little, hoping that it will subside with a full belly and, subsequently, renewed brain power, if not some stroke of luck in the next few hours. “Let’s get something to eat,” Hank suggests. “You think there’s anywhere decent to get a meal around here?”

* * *

It’s not the best chicken-fried steak he’s ever had, but the little diner they’d settled on is clean, and the food’s passable. Hank smothers his forkful of meat in gravy, feeling the slightest bit better for the comfort settling in his stomach like a warm blanket, and he lets his mind idle, content to stare out the window at the hills in the distance, glowing gold in the late afternoon sun, watching the few people in the diner’s parking lot coming and going. 

He watches a young couple swing a small boy between them, the child’s face splitting with laughter even after they set him down. He jumps up and down, clearly trying to initiate another round of swinging, and Hank recalls doing the same with Walt Jr. once, Marie at the boy’s other side, Junior screaming _again, again_ until Marie’s arms couldn’t take it any longer, and Walt had propped his son up on his shoulders, much to her relief. Those days seem like ages ago, and Hank realizes he’d been smiling until Walt came to mind. The boy and his parents slip away from view, behind a yellow van, and Hank stares after them, lost in feelings he can’t quite grasp, and doesn’t care to chase. 

His eyes wander over the side of the van then, at the logo on the side. _Magnolia Carpet Cleaning_ , it says, and Hank’s brain starts churning. “Gomie,” he says after a beat. “What’s that flower the White Supremacy Assholes use as their symbol?”

“Cornflower. That was the original Nazi flower symbol, at least. I think some of the Neo-Nazi groups use the magnolia. Why?” 

Hank pauses, hesitant for a moment, then jabs his thumb towards the van outside the window. “Am I reaching here?” 

Steve’s eyes flick to the window then back to Hank, the barest smile crossing his face. “You would be one _hell_ of a lucky bastard if something were to come of that.” he ribs. “But knowing you, I could see it happening. I say we look into it. We’ve got nothing else to go on at this point.”

* * *

“So, did anything happen to come up under Kandy or McMullin?” Hank asks.

“No, sorry,” Connor answers. 

“Yeah, well, I expected as much. But I do have one more chore for you. See what you can find out about Magnolia Carpet Cleaners on 803 Warm Springs Boulevard here in Elephant Butte.” Hank stands at the back of the van, reading off the company’s operating license number and contact information printed beneath the emblem of a white flower with dark green leaves surrounding it. “Pull up the owner’s name and personal address, then run a New Mexico plate for me as follows: 896-Lima, Kilo, November.”

“I’m on it,” Conner answers, and the line disconnects. 

“Warm Springs,” Hank mutters, scanning the street signs around them. “There,” he points at the next block over. “I knew I remembered seeing it earlier.” The bent street sign backlit by the dipping sun marks a scorched road separating the diner behind them and a small adobe-style building on the other side. Hank strides towards it, and Steve jogs up alongside him. 

The stunted street dead ends almost immediately to the left and continues on for a few more blocks to the right, before leading out into the vastness of the dessert, and as Hank crosses the road, the sun-washed numbers of the building’s address become legible, reading 803 alongside the curb. 

If Steve wonders how Hank surmised the address would be situated within such close proximity of the diner and van, he doesn’t ask, but Hank’s long experience with his partner tells him that Steve’s most likely on the same page already. There’s no driveway on the property, nowhere to park, save along the street. 

“So these guys use that diner’s lot to park and get some free advertising while they’re at it,” Steve deduces, and Hank smiles, ever gratified with his own intuition of Steve’s reasoning.

“Looks as if,” Hank supplies. He crosses onto the property, sidewalk giving way to a pebble-lined path leading to the front door of what simply amounts to a small house, the only proof of its conversion into a business a small sign propped in the window to match the logo and business information on the side of the van.

Knocking several times proves fruitless—no one answers, unsurprisingly, empty and battened down as the place looks. They slip around the side of the house to peer into two separate windows, however, as with the front, miniblinds secured tightly from jamb to jamb obstruct their view entirely. 

The wooden gate between the side of the house and the stuccoed wall around the back is padlocked, but Hank’s fairly certain there’s nothing to see there anyway, if it’s anything like the front and left side: sparse and private. 

The dejection starts to settle in yet again, threatening to spread over him, as final as a death shroud. It’s only sheer thoroughness that urges Hank to check the other side of the building anyway, averse to leaving anything on the table, but there’s nothing to see. 

On the way back around to the front, his phone vibrates in his pocket and he flips it open. Connor’s waiting for him on the other end.

“You ready for this?” Connor’s tight voice sends a surge of adrenaline through Hank’s veins, and he freezes on the spot, riveted.

“What?” Hank demands. 

“This business, this Magnolia Carpet Cleaning place? It’s owned by one Joseph Voigt-Welker. Coincidence? You be the judge. I’ll keep rooting around until I can find something more solid, but I thought I’d call with this right away.”

“Yeah, I appreciate it. Keep me posted.” Hank snaps his phone shut, turning around to find Steve standing behind him, his face pinched.

“Come check this out,” Steve urges, and leads Hank back to the side of the house once again. He motions to a boulder he’s pushed up in front of the gate. “Take a look back there.”

Stepping up onto the boulder, Hank levers himself up with his forearms against the flat plank of wood capping the fence. 

The back of the property resembles the front and sides in its scarceness: a cement slab extending three-quarters of the way off the building to the back and side walls, a wide strip of fine sand sandwiched between, scantily planted with desert-scape. But other than two garbage cans pulled up to the opposite side wall and a handful of boxes stacked neatly in front of them, the back of the property is empty. Afraid he’s missing something, he starts to question what Steve had seen, but then he sees it for himself.

Bracing the gate and leaning into the side of the building, Hank lifts himself up and over the gate, trotting over towards the garbage cans despite the jarring pain in his low back and hip. He lobs the top two boxes aside, grabs the third and tilts it up to read the name marked on the side. 

_Madrigal Elektromotoren._

Steve follows suit, hopping the fence, and flips open the trash cans, rifling gingerly through the top layer of contents. Hank’s vision narrows to a tunnel around him, eyes foraging then focusing in on a small pile of cigarette butts, ground into the dirt, a patch of what looks to be dried vomit on the edge of the concrete aside them. 

“I’ll be damned,” Steve says, an awed quality to his voice as he stoops a few feet away, to the side of the garbage cans. 

Hank gets up and follows Steve’s gaze to where a wrinkled slip of paper—an invoice for a rental car—lays impaled by a stick, secured into the ground, the unmistakable pattern of letters and numbers scribed into the earth next to it:

 _El Paso AA5783_.

Steve levels his gaze at Hank. “The kid’s leaving us breadcrumbs.”


	7. Reparation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s him, Pinkman, the relief of his profile cut sharp as a goddamn knife and just as unmistakable. As shocking as the kid’s disappearance had been, Hank finds the same jarring feeling holds true with his unexpected emergence, and Hank has to turn away for fear of being pegged before he’s ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank Porkchop_Sandwiches for the continued beta work and support throughout this story--I'm so grateful. <3 
> 
> It goes without saying, however, that any residual mistakes are inherently mine.
> 
> I'm not a medical expert, nor do I have any expansive knowledge of the law or police procedures, so I hope that my brief research has sufficiently enabled me to write a fairly-believable story.
> 
> This is the longest story I've ever written (and my first multi-chapter fic), so I thank you all for reading and letting me learn by working (and fumbling) through my craft. I hope it works for you! Constructive Criticism is welcome; please just be respectful about it.

**Chapter Seven _: Reparation_**

****

“I don’t believe it.” Hanks shakes his head, yanks the stick from within the earth’s grip to free the invoice pinned into the ground. “It’s almost too good to be true. I mean, when do you ever get a lead like this?”

“Never. The kid did good,” Steve agrees, using his phone to snap a photo of Jesse’s sharp-pointed message carved into the dirt. “Real good.”

Hank flips open his phone, calling Connor for what feels like the hundredth time today. “It’s me again,” Hank supplies before Connor can answer. “I need you to see if there’s a flight—an American Airlines flight, possibly, out of El Paso. Flight number AA5783. I need to know when it’s leaving, quickly. Call me right back.” 

Hank snaps his phone shut, poring over the invoice. “They rented a black Ford Explorer. The plate number’s here and everything.” Hank flicks the page for emphasis, standing up. He scans the back of the building’s premises one last time before settling his eyes on Steve. “I think we should get a couple guys up here to go through this place and get on the road toward El Paso.”

* * *

“American Airlines flight AA5783 leaves El Paso, headed to DFW, tomorrow morning at 5:29am.” Connor’s voice floods the cabin of Hank’s car, the confirmation of the impending flight—the chance of apprehending Alquist and Lydia, of finding Jesse—washed up at his feet like so much jetsam for the taking. “They’re probably hoping for an empty flight that time of day—less chance of being noticed.” Connor adds.

“Yeah,” Hank agrees, but he’s sidetracked, contemplating Alquist’s next moves. “I’m just wondering what they’re going to do in the meantime. It’s what, about six thirty right now?” Hank checks his watch. Close enough. “They’ll probably want to get some dinner soon, if they haven’t already, and then lay low in a hotel for the night, if they don’t have any other properties around here. We haven’t released any public info on Alquist yet, so we can only hope he won’t have his guard all the way up. Lydia knows the heat’s on, but I doubt she knows how hot it _really_ is. Still, they’re smart enough to be inconspicuous.”

“If I were Alquist,” Steve chimes in, “I’d probably find the seediest motel I could, a little way off the beaten path. I’d stop at some fast food joint, then stay locked down until it was time to head to the airport. Lydia might not like slumming it, but I think she’d see reason in it.”

“Then that’s where we’re headed as well,” Hank affirms. “Connor, I need you to check out the hotels between Elephant Butte and El Paso. Make a short list of cheap ones, not too far off the highway, but not right on top of it. Add the Explorer to the APB, then pull a full team together to assist at the airport tomorrow at the ass-crack of dawn. 

* * *

After four stops at various hotels off of Highway 25 and five more along the 10 searching for the black Explorer, Hank pulls the car into the driveway of the tenth and final hotel. A quick loop around the lot shows no sign of Alquist’s rented SUV, but then they didn’t expect it anyway. 

This hotel, a reliably clean chain a degree or two nicer than the previous nine one-offs, had appealed to Hank’s preference for a hotel with a bar in its lounge and Steve’s fastidious nature and intolerance of insects. 

They park and head for the check-in desk, grumbling to one another about not having changes of clothes, but ultimately agreeing that it could be worse: At least the hotel would have basic toiletries available. 

At the counter, Hank gets them settled with rooms for the night and passes a key card off to Steve. “Hey,” Hank slaps Steve’s arm with the back of his hand. “You up for a drink?”

“Yeah,” Steve nods. “Sounds good, but I’m going to head up to my room, first. That chicken fried steak’s not sitting right. I’ve gotta get that shit out. It didn’t bother you at all?”

“Nope,” Hank assures him, rubbing his gut with both hands as if to illustrate his point. “I’m all good. Not due for a little while, yet.” 

Steve guffaws at that. “Alright, well, wish me a happy delivery. I’ll meet you in the bar afterwards.”

“I’m going to go call Marie. I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

“Alright,” Steve acknowledges, pressing the call button for the elevator.

“Don’t forget to wash your hands.” Hank razzes, sliding his room key into his pocket.

* * *

“Jesus _Christ_ , Hank! Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” 

It wasn’t the conversation he envisioned having with his wife right now. 

She’d answered with a sleep-sultry voice that suggested she’d been at least two glasses of wine into a buzz already, and her breathy giggles when he said he’d missed running his hands over her body had gone straight to his cock. He thought he might even get a little phone sex out of the conversation, but then things turned toward the mundane. 

Marie spent the better part of ten minutes bending his ear about a co-worker, while Hank spent those same minutes resisting the urge to try and fix her problems, which clearly resulted from a lack of communication. He’d said all the right things. He’d offered the _I’m sorry you had to deal with that_ , the _I’m so sorry you had a bad day_ , and even promised her an extra-long backrub when he returned. And when she’d finally exhausted herself by running it through for what was likely the umpteenth time today to whomever would listen, Hank felt just about as exhausted himself. 

She’d pressed him to catch her up on his work over the last few days, and as isolated as they’d been from one another, he knew he owed her at least that much, even if he would have rather done anything but talk about work with her right then. 

So being the dutiful husband that he was, Hank took her through all the recent developments on the case since he’d told her about Walt’s demise: about the current manhunt for Alquist and Lydia, and everything leading up to it. About Neil Kandy and the barrels of methylamine, and, a little reluctantly, about Pinkman and his entire ordeal. 

And that was when Marie had gotten emotional. 

Their recent physical distance had made the information easier to withhold, but with her grilling him for specifics, he’d had no real reason to withhold the basic facts of the matter: that they’d found the kid alive, if only just, having been held captive in a subterranean cage for the past six months, and that even as they spoke, he was being held against his will.

“I just,” Marie pauses, and Hank can hear her struggling for words. “I know he wasn’t the most upstanding citizen or anything, but my _God_ , Hank. The poor kid.”

For such a strong woman—one who Hank admires so thoroughly for her typical even-keeled temper and cool head during crises—her compassion rivals that strength, rounding her out into perfection: his ideal woman. He knew she’d react like this. The kid had eaten their food, slept under their roof while cooperating on the case. He’d been abducted from their home. He had a connection to their family, however unsavory, and Hank knows he can’t expect her to simply dial down her empathy, nor does he really want her to. He just doesn’t want the distraction, worrying about her emotional well-being or trying to manage the risk of his own feelings creeping into any component of this case at the moment. Better to keep things airtight when so much is on the line. He needs a clear head right now.

“Look,” he attempts to pacify Marie. “We know exactly _where_ they’re going, and _when_ they’re going to get there. We have an entire team ready to assist us. We’ll get him back safe and sound, alright?”

“And what about you, Hank? What if something had happened to you and I had no idea that you were even out of town, let alone headed into such a dangerous situation?” She doesn’t sound mad, per se, just concerned. Sad at being left out of the loop. God, he loves her so much.

“I’ll be fine, babe. I always am.”

* * *

Hank sidles up to the bar, resting his arms on the polished wood, the dim light of the room a much-appreciated comfort in contrast to a day spent in the harsh light of the late summer sun. Levering himself up on the barstool, he motions for the bartender, trying to decide between the Hoegaarden on tap, or a few fingers of Whistle Pig, the latter of which seems more suited to the day—strike that—past _few_ days he’s had.

He opts for the whisky, savoring the first few sips before gulping the rest in one go and letting it burn straight through him. He enjoys the ritual of the drink as much as the drink itself; relishing the cool feeling of the glass in his hand and the tinkling notes of the ice cubes as much as the warmth in his belly; the looseness in his shoulders, the tension melting off of him, even as he calls for another. 

The few quiet moments go a long way to refreshing him. The faint music piping through the hotel’s speakers—something indiscernible but pleasant—supplies a relaxing background to the chimes and clinks of glasses and the soft murmur of voices around him. He lets his mind drift on a wave of them as the bartender brings him his second drink, until one of the voices stands out to him distinctly. A throaty, raw voice that sounds an awful lot like Jesse’s reaches his ears from behind and to the left.

Hank’s grateful for the slug of liquor engulfing him in its cozy confidence, forestalling the icy tendrils that threaten to creep up his spine at the prospect of Alquist at his unguarded back. Hank chances a glance over his shoulder as surreptitiously as possible, and his ears haven’t deceived him. 

It’s him, Pinkman, the relief of his profile cut sharp as a goddamn knife and just as unmistakable. As shocking as the kid’s disappearance had been, Hank finds the same jarring feeling holds true with his unexpected emergence, and Hank has to turn away for fear of being pegged before he’s ready.

He discerns Lydia’s voice next, clipped and firm, vibrating with tension. “I’ll have a Belvedere martini. Dirty. Three olives. Do you want anything? You should have some juice. Bring him some cranberry juice.” 

Hank’s eyes dart to the mirror lining the wall behind the shelves stacked with bottles across from him. If he shifts a bit, he can make them both out behind him, at a table on the left side of the room. Lydia’s sat rigidly upright, uptight in her usual pristine business attire, the antithesis to Jesse, slumped into the cushioned leather booth across from her with a pallor white enough to be considered cadaverous. 

Hank scans the mirror from one side to the other, searching for Alquist, but he’s nowhere in sight. It’s both a blessing and a curse: Two of them, off guard in close proximity, but the most dangerous of the three unaccounted for. 

_Where there’s a Lydia, there’s a Todd_. Hank recalls Kandy’s words, and Hank knows he needs a plan before he moves and potentially gives himself away.

A few slow breaths through his nose help him steel himself and channel the sudden influx of adrenaline; help him to steady the sudden tremor in his hands. 

He flips his phone open, addressing a text to Steve: _Pinkman and Lydia are in the bar. No sign of Alquist. Hang back._ He hits the send button, ears attuned to the conversation behind him. 

“Delores,” Lydia’s voice sounds again, and he stills, his glass, now slick with condensation still clasped tightly in his grip. “Let me talk to Kiira.”

There’s a pause then, and Hank can see in the mirror’s reflection that she’s on the phone. Jesse’s starting off at nothing in particular, apparently resigned to his circumstances and likely too unwell to do much about it even if he wanted to. He looks downright wretched. 

“Hi Honey,” Lydia resumes. “Mommy’s leaving in the morning, but I’ll see you in a week, okay? That’s right. Yes, on the airplane. It will be so exciting, and I’ll be there when you land. Be good for Miss. Delores. Kisses to you, too. Goodnight.”

Hank watches the blond waitress in the reflection as she brings them their drinks, setting them down and then moving away silently as Lydia finishes her call. Even from where Hank sits, he can see the daggers Jesse’s shooting at her now, and she calls him out on it with a barbed tongue.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she lashes. “I’m doing you a _favor_ , here. Free ride out of town, new home, job security… a whole new life.”

Hank contemplates her words, considers Jesse’s loyalties. Wonders briefly if he’s working both sides here, but his body language clearly says otherwise. Hank’s familiar with the characteristics of the kid’s intractability: The jut of his jaw, the glare burning through his narrowed eyes that says he’ll take himself down in flames on principle, just to prove a point. It’s almost comical to see it aimed at someone else for a change, but for the weight of the situation on the whole.

“Look,” Lydia scolds. “I know you’re intent on playing the victim right now, but it would behoove you to be a little more cooperative.” Lydia heaves an inconvenienced sigh, sips at her martini. “And wipe that scowl off your face,” she adds. “It’s unbecoming.”

Jesse shakes his head and looks away, either too drained to keep up his current level of dissent, or simply realizing the futility in it.

Lydia casts a careful glance around, and Hank ducks his head, evading her eyes in the mirror. Thankfully, she doesn’t distinguish the back of his head from any other middle-aged bald guy, and he’s never been so glad for his own mediocrity.

She sets her drink down, smooths her hair back and leans forward as though she’s composing herself for an important business dealing. Maybe she is. 

“You think you’ll fare better if you stay?” The question draws Pinkman’s attention back and she pins him under her heavy gaze, though her voice has gentled somewhat, a modicum of what sounds like concern in her tone. “I mean,” she starts, as her palms turn upward over the table. “You’ll be the only one left. You’d take the brunt of everything. Isn’t what I’m offering so much better? I think it’s best for all of us if we just stick with the plan.” 

It’s a decent performance, but it’s obvious to Hank that it’s just that: A performance. Manipulation. A silver spoon offered up to the kid’s mouth, a knife pressed up to his back.

And Jesse sees right through it.

He leans forward, posture matching hers, his voice as hard as his eyes when he answers: “Look, I know you’re intent on playing the humanitarian right now, but let’s get real for a moment. It’s not as if you’re giving me a choice.”

 _Atta boy,_ Hank thinks _._

Stymied, Lydia sits back, scoffing and rolling her eyes before she checks her watch, adjusting it on her wrist as she does. “Well, Todd should be back any time, now. Maybe he can talk some sense into you.” 

Jesse blanches at that, sagging back into his seat as Lydia sips her martini. “Drink your juice,” she snaps. “You look like you’re going to keel over.” 

Hank picks up his phone again. His thumbs feel thick and clumsy, damp with perspiration as he punches in another text message to Steve: _Get downstairs, get eyes on the bar. Alquist in route here soon. Need you behind him._

Setting his phone back down on the bar, Hank motions for the barman again, this time to close his tab, and knocks back the last of his drink, relying on the whisky’s dissipating heat and the lingering fortitude it offers, however synthetic. It goes a long way to steeling his nerves that threaten to fray and split along with his attention, bouncing between Lydia and the kid behind him, the prospect of Alquist coming through the door at any moment, and Steve, who’s probably still dropping a deuce. Hank doesn’t begrudge him that, but _Christ_ , of all times. 

The book with his check appears in front of him, and he shoves a few bills inside, pocketing his wallet again, when he spots Alquist’s reflection behind him.

Hank’s heart kicks up its tempo and his skin prickles with sweat along his lower back and under his arms. His phone stares back at him blankly, but this time, he registers, with a sinking feeling, the little antenna sign in the upper right-hand side of his display. His signal’s low, if not non-existent. He wonders if it’s been deficient the whole time, if Steve got any of his messages to begin with. The prospect of his partner walking into this tenuous situation unawares could be catastrophic. Hank begins formulating plans and weighing options, when he hears Alquist’s voice behind him.

“We’re all set,” he says neutrally, his words ambiguous. Hank watches Alquist’s hand alight on Lydia’s shoulder and Hank shudders, though Lydia takes it in stride, draining the rest of her cocktail, composed as she meets his eyes.

“Let’s go,” she orders with a stern look at Jesse, hooking her purse over her shoulder as she gets up. 

Jesse slides out of his seat at her behest, though his eyes remain locked warily on Todd as he follows them toward the door, his gait stiff and sluggish.

Watching them retreat kicks Hank into motion. Losing sight of them, especially if they happen to have changed their plans, is not an option, however unfavorable trailing them alone might be. 

He hops off his barstool, thankful for the gun at his hip as he unhooks the safety strap on his holster, hand hovering over his weapon. 

The fact that Alquist lets Jesse trail behind them unattended speaks to the amount of control he’s established, and clearly still exerts over the kid. It makes Hank’s skin crawl, and he briefly indulges himself in reverie of drawing his gun, of closing the twenty or so measly feet between them to press it up behind Alquist’s ear and let loose, but he casts the thought aside just as quickly, allowing his training and instincts to take precedence as he focuses, assesses.

Following the trio into the lobby, Hank decides that if Alquist leads them toward a room on the premises, he’ll get the manager of the hotel involved and call for backup, but if he steers them anywhere else, he will act on his own. 

Hank’s close enough behind Jesse now that he can hear his breath hitching as he plods along behind Lydia and Todd, slump-shouldered and dragging his feet. A quick step or two would cover the distance to him, and if they veer towards the exit of the hotel, Hank determines the best course of action will be to grab the kid’s arm, pull him aside and advance on Lydia and Todd. With them at gunpoint, Hank can call for backup. It’s a solid plan, and right now, with his weapon ready and the element of surprise on his side, he has as much of an advantage in his sole state as he can hope for.

He keeps his position a few paces back, determined in his step but just as determined to appear casual, averse to drawing any attention to himself. They’re close to the front of the building, nearing the check-in desk, but just before Alquist must choose to head straight towards the foyer or right toward the elevator hall and the rooms, a voice cracks through the air in Hank’s name.

“Schrader! Hey, Hank!”

A slice of fear cuts through Hank’s gut as he spots Agent Vanco, his former colleague from the El Paso Intelligence Division, calling out, pushing towards him in a wheelchair and completely oblivious to the potential danger of the situation unfolding around them.

Time seems to slow, and the edges of Hank’s vision soften with a dreamlike quality, at odds with the pounding in his chest. Within the breadth of a split second, he absorbs what feels like a million signals, his mind laden, triaging the barrage of information. 

Jesse and Lydia wheel around, having heard Hank’s name. Jesse’s face is a mix of hope and horror, while Lydia’s reads anger, disbelief. Vanco’s brow furrows in confusion then smooths out with understanding on some level that segues to alarm as he backs himself out of the way in haste.

Alquist senses the disruption behind him and he pivots on his heel. He doesn’t know Hank’s face or his name, but his eyes immediately cut to the gun at Hank’s side and then he’s reaching back, pulling something from the waistband of his jeans. 

A voice shrieks out near him, “ _No!_ ”

Hank’s chest tightens, muscles bunching as he draws his pistol, and a shot fires out as his field of vision careens, the earthy hues of the hotel streaking before his eyes until he hits the marble floor beneath him, flesh and bone crashing down on him from above.

Shouts and screams fill the air amongst the thundering of fleeing footfalls and the echo of the gun’s discharge.

Hank shoves against the weight pinning him. It’s Jesse, he registers dully, as he pushes himself up onto his elbows, frantically reorienting himself. His firearm has skidded away, out of reach, and he squirms in desperation to extricate himself, reaching out for it as Alquist advances on him, gun trained at his head, though he already knows the futility of it.

His eyes squeeze shut as a second blast cuts through the air, and he thinks of Marie. 

* * *

After a pause, Hank opens his eyes. 

There’s no pain. At least none of consequence, beyond the usual discomfort left from bullet wounds of old and a renewed aching of his hip, and he knows he’s cheated death yet again. He’ll live to see another day, to kiss his wife once more, as the Angel of Death passes him by to collect another. 

A body missing half its skull is all that remains of Todd Alquist now, sprawled out on his face in a mess of his own blood and gore, and Steve stands just beyond the body, gun still suspended mid-air for a moment before he holsters it, his face more solemn that Hank’s ever seen it.

Sound comes back to Hank then, though he doesn’t remember losing it to begin with. He hears Lydia bargaining, pleading hysterically as Steve detains her; hears Vanco speaking hurriedly, along with a high-pitched wail competing with the blast still ringing in his ears.

_Jesse._

Hank’s vision sharpens and time seems to speed up as he crawls over to where the kid lies curled on his side, wheezing. There’s a fair amount of blood soaking through his shirt and a bit more puddled around him. Hank’s seen worse before, but the thought does little to comfort him.

“We need an ambulance,” Hank shouts to anyone who’ll listen, taking in the state of the kid before him.

It’s been a few years since he’s needed his first-aid training, but it kicks in robotically as he fishes his tactical knife out of his pocket, the muscle memory of slicing and ripping t-shirt material coming back to his hands to work of their own volition. A hard swipe of the discarded material clears most of the pooling blood, revealing what appears to be an exit wound several inches below his clavicle, skin torn rough and ragged in contrast to the raised, circular entrance wound, on the kid’s back. 

Hank tears the t-shirt in half, balling both pieces up and pushing Jesse onto his back over one, pressing hard into his chest with the other. 

Jesse swats at Hank’s arm, tries to dislodge it, but his feeble attempt doesn’t budge it in the least. “Stop,” he whines between gasps, trying again. Hank figures the pain must be starting to set in, any residual adrenaline spent by a body already pushed beyond acceptable limits.

“Just focus on breathing,” Hank tells him in the calmest voice he can muster. 

Jesse shakes his head in reply. “Just … _let go_.”

The kid looks up at him, and Hank tries to read his expression, to parse out the meaning in the set of his brow and the downward curve of his mouth. There’s a mournful acceptance there, and realization hits Hank like a fist. 

“ _No_ ,” Hank asserts, trying his damnedest to keep his own emotions from flooding into his voice. “You’re going to be fine. Everything will be fine,” he insists, but Jesse’s morbid prediction makes Hank question his own sense of reality. The kid’s already pale skin has gone impossibly white, and Hank knows he’s near to shock, if not already in its throes. 

“’m cold,” Jesse mutters, as if to prove the point, as Hank regards the blood welling through the cloth between his fingers. He digs his knee into the wound to better staunch the flow, intensely determined, though he doesn’t even know to what ends.

They’ve spent too much time in these respective positions: Hank above Jesse, in society, life. Figuratively, but also, just as they physically are. Whether Hank had dealt a beating or someone else inflicted their own brand of cruelty, Hank was there to see it all, hovering over the kid to peer down on his destruction. 

And here he is again. 

Hank’s not sure if it’s fear of his own participation in this pattern, his need to expunge his own mark, or sheer altruism that makes him want to play a different role this time, but he hopes it’s the latter. He wants to be the person he was in his youth—at the start of his career, at Jesse’s age, and not the cynic he’s become with a mismanaged grudge he can’t name. 

He wants to do right by Jesse, but his opportunity looks to be fading fast, along with the remnants of the kid’s consciousness—if not his life—spacing out into infinity with glassy eyes as he is.

“Hey-hey-hey, _Kid_ ,” Hank calls, beckoning Jesse back with a few pats to his cheek. “Listen. Are you listening?” Jesse blinks slowly, offering a weak nod in response. “I checked on Brock, just like you asked.” This seems to grab Jesse’s attention somewhat, and his eyes come back into focus, growing wider in question. “He’s fine,” Hank assures him. “Living with his great-grandmother, doing well in school. Plays soccer, goes to youth group at church.” 

Tears well up and spill over the kid’s cheeks as he begins to laugh and sob simultaneously. His breath crackles ominously, but the relief that pours out of him is so pure and profound, it’s almost as tangible as the blood staining the corners of his mouth. 

Hank’s immensely glad that he’d capitulated; that he’d conceded to do that small favor for Jesse, when he’d initially intended to decline to, but his alleviation is short lived, as hands move him aside and take his place.

* * *

He’s permitted to ride in the ambulance this time, but he’s not sure it’s a good thing. 

It’s hard to watch the fight to live drain out of the kid, even if there hadn’t been much fight to begin with. It’s hard to watch awareness leave his eyes, not knowing whether it will ever come back. If the kid will ever open his eyes to see a better day.

Hank thinks he should take those burdens to heart; wonders if they’re his penance, or a catalyst of change. He decides that he’ll accept whatever fate God doles out and try to learn and better himself for it on Jesse’s behalf. 

* * *

When Hank shuffles out of the emergency room what feels like ages later, Steve’s sat there waiting. He rises up out of his chair and acknowledges Hank with a look that says there’s no need for answers; that whatever information Steve needs to know will keep for now.

There will be time to debrief, to submit forms, for procedures and policies later. The thought of lauded promotions and subsequent celebrations that he’d sought for the better part of a year now seem lackluster and inconsequential. The desperate need to destroy Walter White and smear his name has been a driving force, a companion, for so long, but now it seems to have burnt out on him, waning at a time when he thought he’d feel most elated in its culmination.

But right now, all he wants is to be home, where he can fall apart in privacy, with no one but Marie there as witness, to piece him back together after.

But there’s one thing he needs to do first.

* * *

The line rings several times before a gravelly voice answers, muddled with sleep and confusion. 

“Mr. Pinkman,” Hank rumbles, making no effort to camouflage the chill in his tone. “This is Agent Scrader, from the DEA. You spoke to my colleague, Agent Gomez, before?”

Mr. Pinkman pauses, likely still trying to wake, let alone put two and two together. “Yes, yes. I remember. How can I help?”

“Your son’s been shot.” Hank doesn’t offer condolences, or any upfront information at first, though he knows he’s being deliberately cruel. He wants Mr. Pinkman to struggle—to form his own conclusions. Hank wants to hear his raw, unadulterated reaction. 

“Oh my God,” Mr. Pinkman breathes. There’s a pause. A long sigh. “Is he… What happened? What’d he do?”

And there it is. Along with a tone of regret is the blame Mr. Pinkman presumes should be nailed to his own child, even with some of the most dreaded words ever uttered to a parent still ringing in their ears. Hank revels in the delivery of rebuke Mr. Pinkman deserves:

“He saved my _life_ , is what he _did_ ,” Hank refutes, with as much poise as he can feign, though the contempt in his own voice almost chokes him.

* * *

_Two Weeks Later_

The room is dark, curtains pulled tight against the morning light, and Hank yanks them apart, pulls them all the way open to let the sunshine stream into the room. He approaches the bed, with its tangle of sheets and limbs splayed akimbo and gives the lump under the covers a gentle shake.

“Wakey, wakey,” Hank croons cheerfully, though in all honesty, he hates to interrupt the kid’s hard-earned, much-needed rest. He’s still skin and bones despite having put some weight back on, and though his health is improving, he’s still more than a little shaky, unable to do much more than sleep and sleep some more.

The Jesse of old would’ve bitched and moaned about the wake-up call; would’ve made things difficult just for the sake of it, but Hank doesn’t see that Jesse much anymore, if at all. He supposes things like childish antics and defiance slip away for good when one continually needs to make room for things like fear and survival. Instead, Jesse simply stretches, cautious of his wounds, and yawns, adjusting to the light of the burgeoning day.

“You could give Rip Van Winkle a run for his money,” Hank jokes, giving Jesse’s bearded chin a tug and getting a guarded smile in return. 

“I bet I could,” Jesse muses, rubbing his eyes. “Feel like I could sleep for a year.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Hank says, and though he tries for jocose, he can still hear the concern threaded through his own voice. “You ready to blow this joint? I’m sure you’re getting sick of hospital food by now.” 

“I’ve had worse,” Jesse counters. “And I doubt prison food’s going to taste much better.”

Hank shakes his head. “You’re not going to prison, Jesse. Not right now, and not ever, if I can help it.” The kid looks doubtful, afraid to hope. “Juries don’t usually throw heroes or victims in prison,” Hank tells him. “Come on,” he encourages, nudging the kid’s shoulder. “Get dressed. I have some clothes here for you. You’re staying with us for a while. Marie’s got the guest room ready, and she’s making a lasagna just for you.”

“But,” Jesse blinks up at Hank, and Hank can see a thousand questions brimming, warring for precedence with what looks like despair and disbelief. “Why? I mean… I’m the _bad_ guy.”

“You might be a lot of things,” Hank agrees. “But a bad guy? No.”

Jesse sits with Hank’s words for a moment before his eyes bore straight through him, laden with more gravity that Hank thinks he can bear. “If I’m not the bad guy,” Jesse challenges, “then what am I?”

Hank gives that some thought before he speaks. “I think you’re a person who got a dealt a shitty hand. I think you’re a human who made some bad choices. I think you’re a kid who was manipulated and blackmailed and forced into shit that spiraled into depths that no one should know.” 

Tears form in Jesse’s eyes, and Hank can’t begin to name all the emotions swirling within them.

“I think you’re an infuriating little shit,” Hank adds with a mock jab to the kid’s arm and a bit of forced laughter, grappling for some levity. 

Jesse’s lip quirks up on one side in a half-smile, but the tears remain, and the room seems to run thin on oxygen.

“You’re alive.” Hank reminds him. It’s an echo from the not-so-distant past that Hank hopes that Jesse remembers. “You’ll have plenty of time to figure out the rest—to become whoever _Jesse Pinkman_ wants to be.”

Jesse nods. He looks only half-convinced, but Hank takes that as a victory for now. 

“Come on.” Hank grips Jesse’s bicep; steadies him as they rise. “Let’s get out of here and get some Guarduño’s on the way back. Just don’t tell Marie.”

_Fin_

I've compiled a super-angsty 'soundtrack' (glorified playlist) to match the mood of this story that you can listen to below, if you're so inclined. I hope you enjoy. :)

1\. [Panic Switch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdjzU0c9YGg) \--Silversun Pickups

2\. [Crawling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaM1AzjD7s) \--Linkin Park

3\. [Gooey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeo3an2M_Lo) \--Glass Animals

4\. [Baptized by Fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ml1imX23o8) \--Spinerette

5\. [Heathens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ1HPUZSIiE) \--Twenty One Pilots

6\. [Evil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUOMQzQdU34) \--Interpol 

7.[ Anxiety](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kokvgaM4ygo) \--Black Eyed Peas

8.[ Three Seed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X0OnTsdtmE) \--Silversun Pickups

9\. [Change](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL4MGwlZuAc) \--Deftones

10\. [The Red](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ndFL1v34E) \--Chevelle

11\. [Lights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9RbUwvqc2U) \--Ellie Goulding

12\. [Circadian Rhythm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhU9O4T_mJU) \--Silversun Pickups

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, once again, for reading!


End file.
